TOKYO (AP) — Japanese sushi legend Jiro Ono won three Michelin stars for more than a decade, the world’s oldest head chef to do so. He has served the world’s…
Japanese sushi legend Jiro Ono won three Michelin stars for more than a decade, the world’s oldest head chef to do so. He has served the world’s dignitaries and his art of sushi was featured in an award-winning film.
After all these achievements and at the age of 100, he is not ready to fully retire.
“I plan to keep going for about five more years,” Ono said last month as he marked Japan’s “Respect for the Aged Day” with a gift and a certificate ahead of his birthday.
What’s the secret of his health? “To work,” Ono replied to the question by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, who congratulated him.
“I can no longer come to the restaurant every day … but even at 100, I try to work if possible. I believe the best medicine is to work.”
Ono, the founder of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, 10-seat sushi bar in the basement of a building in Tokyo’s posh Ginza district, turned 100 Monday.
In one of the world’s fastest-aging countries, he is now among Japan’s nearly 100,000 centenarians, according to government statistics.
Born in the central Japanese city of Hamamatsu in 1925, Ono began his apprenticeship at age 7 at the Japanese restaurant of a local inn. He moved to Tokyo and became a sushi chef at 25 and opened his own restaurant — Sukiyabashi Jiro — 15 years later in 1965.
