Director David Gelb said his impression of Ono was \u201cof a teacher and a fatherly figure to all who were in his restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the beginning, Gelb felt intimidated by the \u201cgravitas” of the legend but was soon disarmed by Ono’s sense of humor and kindness, he told the Associated Press in an interview from New Orleans. “He’s very funny and very sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was filming an octopus being massaged for an hour, and he was worried about me,” Gelb recalled. Ono told him he was afraid the director was making the most boring film ever and that he could leave if he wanted to.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was so generous and kind of humble of him to do that,\u201d Gelb said. \u201cOf course I was determined, and I was like, no way … Massaging the octopus to me is fascinating.”<\/p>\n
Regulars come first<\/p>\n
Ono is devoted to what he serves to his regular clients, even turning down the Japanese government when it called to make a reservation for then-U.S. President Barack Obama and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said no as the restaurant was fully booked, then they agreed to come later in the evening,\u201d Ono recalled. \u201cBut (Obama) was enjoying sushi and I was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ono\u2019s son Yoshikazu, who has worked with his father and now serves as head chef at the Ginza restaurant, said Obama smiled and winked at them when he tried medium fatty tuna sushi.<\/p>\n
His restaurant earned three Michelin stars in 2007, as he became the first sushi chef to do so, and has kept the status until 2019, when he was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the oldest head chef of a three-Michelin-star restaurant, at age 93 years and 128 days.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Sukiyabashi Jiro was dropped from the guide because it started taking reservations only from regulars or through top hotels.<\/p>\n
In recent years Ono serves sushi only to his special guests, \u201cas my hands don’t work so well.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he hasn\u2019t given up. His son says Ono, watching television news about the death of Japan\u2019s oldest male at 113, said 13 more years seems doable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will aim for 114,\u201d Ono said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cherish my life so I get to work for a long time,\u201d Ono says. He doesn\u2019t drink alcohol, takes a walk regularly and eats well.<\/p>\n
Asked about his favorite sushi, Ono instantly replied: \u201cMaguro, kohada and anago (tuna, gizzard shad and saltwater eel).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible thing that this tradition continues and that he\u2019s still going strong 100 years in … It\u2019s an inspiration to everyone,” Gelb said, wishing Ono happy birthday in Japanese.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director David Gelb said his impression of Ono was \u201cof a teacher and a fatherly figure to all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,66360,66615],"class_list":["post-100627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jiro-ono","tag-sushi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}