For the 90 minutes that lunch played out at Sushi Chiharu, the smallest upscale-sushi restaurant I've ever eaten at, there was a steady stream of jazz hits underscoring the sushi shokunin (artisan) who catered to the full house.
There were seven of us, seated close together, wrapped around an L-shaped counter. Besides a knife and chef's hat bearing the logo of Insyokujin College framed on the back wall, there was little else to look at. And so we watched our chef as he molded nigiri sushi, sliced squid and placed paper-thin translucent layers of konbu seaweed atop mackerel. As I admired the spectacle, I hoped that Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" or Sonny and Cher's "The Beat Goes On" would play: Our chef had rhythm.
As well as being small, Sushi Chiharu is busy. I suspect that's because for ¥2,800, this is one of the best-value sushi lunches in Osaka. Lunch starts early at 11 a.m. and there are two sittings, the second starting at 12:30 p.m. Dinner has three sittings and runs to 11 p.m. The chef changes regularly and at the pace they work at, they need to. Despite this, the 11 course lunch — comprising eight servings of nigiri — never felt rushed: Our chef had timing.