I'm of another Asian ethnicity and I'm wondering about something. I've noticed that here in the US, there are more Korean-owned or Chinese-owned sushi restaurants than there are Japanese-owned ones, and I'm curious as to why that is?
In the areas where I have lived where this happens, it’s often because there are too few Japanese-owned businesses and that Japanese food is seen as “higher class” (Read: more expensive -> more profitable) than Korean and Chinese food. To be very blunt, it’s about American consumers devaluing Chinese and Korean cuisine in favor of Japanese food and the ignorant, racist assumption that all East Asians are basically the same, so Japanese food prepared by other East Asians is still “authentic.”
This isn’t to say I think a Korean or Chinese person can’t make authentic Japanese food, but rather that, to a typical American customer, seeing an “East Asian” face behind the counter is part of what makes the experience authentic. Upscale grocery stores and delis with a sushi roll/ bento corner similarly play into this consumer expectation, often placing their most “East Asian” passing employees in that part of the store.
The podcast The Sporkful did a great series on restaurants and race a few years back titled Who is This Restaurant For? In part 2 of the series, they explore this phenomenon.
I’m not averse to Korean and Chinese people running Japanese restaurants because they are just trying to make some money in a competitive food service industry, but I often don’t feel the food tastes very Japanese, likely because the target consumers are not Japanese.
I often find I don’t like it when non-Japanese people run restaurants for more specialized Japanese cuisines like kaiseki and sushi, but that’s less about ethnicity (Most of the line cooks at every decent Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles are Hispanic and Filipino) and more about not having the correct level of training and certification.
