Hiroyuki Naruke

The Training The clearest formation attached to Naruke is place and practice: Tokyo, Japan, and Edo-style sushi. His move from Tokyo to Los Angeles came at the request of L.A. Lawyers, not through the usual restaurant recruitment story. The partners of Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan wooed him from Tokyo, and the firm’s office there made the connection direct. Naruke was imported directly from Japan by that L.A. Law firm, then became tied to Q Sushi, where his role is defined through the craft he brought with him.

The Lineage The line that matters in his cooking is Edo-style sushi. It is named as his specialty, and it gives his career at Q Sushi a specific inheritance rather than a vague label. Tokyo is the point of departure; Los Angeles is the city where the work is served. Between them stands a curious piece of hospitality history: lawyers with a Tokyo office sought out a chef from Japan and brought him to a sushi counter in California. The result is a lineage told through movement, from one city to another, and through a style precise enough to carry its own name.

The Table At Q in Los Angeles, that lineage becomes concrete in sea urchin marinated in sweet white miso. It appears again in fluke sliced so thinly it is almost transparent, a preparation described through the delicacy of the cut. Mackerel, fatty tuna, premium mackerel and lean tuna form another named part of the work associated with Naruke at the restaurant. Together, those pieces give shape to his role as head chef: fish selected and handled within the frame of Edo-style sushi, with Tokyo as the origin point and Los Angeles as the stage where it is now encountered.