From the counter
What Is Edomae Sushi?
Edomae (江戸前) means “in front of Edo” — the bay in front of the city that is now Tokyo. The name points at a place. What it actually describes is work: what the chef does to the fish in the hours before you sit down.
Where the name comes from
Edo was Tokyo's name until 1868. The water in front of it — today's Tokyo Bay — was shallow, fed by rivers, and full of fish. Edomae originally just meant seafood caught there.
Nigiri as we know it appeared in Edo in the early 1800s, and the chef usually credited with popularising it is Hanaya Yohei. It was street food, sold from stalls, eaten standing up with the fingers, and the pieces were two or three times the size of a modern one. It was fast, cheap and filling — closer to a sandwich than to anything ceremonial.
Why most of it is not simply raw
This is the part that surprises people. There was no refrigeration in Edo. Fish that arrived in the morning would not survive the day, so it was treated — simmered, cured, marinated — to make it keep.
Refrigeration arrived. The treatments stayed, because it turned out they tasted better. That work is the real meaning of Edomae.
- Simmering nimono
- Sea eel (anago) is simmered slowly in a sweet broth until it can be lifted with chopsticks and barely holds together, then brushed with a reduction of its own cooking liquid.
- Marinating zuke
- Tuna is steeped in soy sauce. The colour deepens, the texture firms, and the flesh takes on a savouriness that raw tuna does not have.
- Curing shime
- Silver-skinned fish — gizzard shad, mackerel, horse mackerel — are salted, then put into vinegar. How long depends on the fish, the season and its fat. This is the step chefs argue about most.
- Boiling and steaming
- Prawn is boiled and cooled so the flesh sets sweet. Abalone and clams are steamed, often in sake, until tender.
- Resting nekase
- Tuna and some white fish are held for days under controlled conditions. The flesh softens and the flavour concentrates. Fish straight off the boat is not always fish at its best.
So on an Edomae counter, a twenty-course omakase might contain only a handful of pieces that are purely raw. Everything else has had something done to it, and deciding what to do and for how long is the chef's actual craft.
The rice
Ask a sushi chef what matters most and many will say the rice, not the fish. It is seasoned with vinegar, salt and sometimes a little sugar, and served at roughly body temperature — which is why a piece should be eaten within a minute of being made.
There are two schools. Red vinegar (akazu), made from aged sake lees, gives a darker, heavier, more savoury rice; it is what Edo chefs used, and many modern counters have gone back to it. White rice vinegar (shirozu) is clear and lighter.
- We use white rice vinegar, and keep the acidity low
- The reasoning is simple: we would rather the fish arrive first and the rice support it than have the two compete. Neither choice is more correct. It is a question of what the chef wants you to notice.
How to tell an Edomae counter from the rest
Not by price, and not by how old the building looks. By what is on the counter.
- Pieces arrive one at a time, seasoned by the chef, not delivered ten to a plate with a dish of soy sauce beside them.
- The course changes. If the same fifteen items appear in January and in August, the fish is not being chosen seasonally.
- Cooked and cured pieces sit in the middle of the course, not as an afterthought at the end.
Conveyor-belt sushi is a different food, and a good one. But it skips the part described above, which is where the cost and the time go.
Questions people ask
Is Edomae sushi different from regular sushi?
Edomae is a style, defined by the preparation work — simmering, curing, marinating — and by the chef seasoning each piece before it is served. Most sushi served outside Japan is closer to the plate-of-raw-fish format than to this.
Does Edomae mean the fish comes from Tokyo Bay?
Historically yes. Today almost no restaurant could source a full course from the bay, so the word describes the technique rather than the origin. Some shops still use bay-caught shellfish and gizzard shad when they can.
Is red vinegar rice better than white?
No — they are different intentions. Red vinegar rice is darker and more savoury and stands up to aged or fatty fish. White vinegar rice is lighter and stays behind the fish.
Why is there so much cooked fish in an Edomae course?
Because the style began before refrigeration, when fish had to be preserved. The techniques outlived the necessity because they improve the ingredient.
What does omakase have to do with Edomae?
They are separate words. Omakase means the chef chooses; Edomae describes how the sushi is made. Most Edomae counters serve omakase, because the work is decided by what came in that morning.
Read next
- What Is Omakase?What the word means, and what two hours at the counter look like.
- Eating Sushi in Tokyo: What to Know Before You BookReservations, payment, timing and finding the door.