Vegan sushi is booming. Meet a Japanese chef in California using locally grown vegetables to ‘evolve sushi’ and make ‘a statement’

Plant-based sushi is on the rise in California, with two restaurants dedicated to the Japanese dish opening just this year, and many others serving it

Yoko Hasebe, a Los Angeles-based chef, talks about why she focuses on using California-grown produce, and her mission to ‘be different as a female chef’

Reading Time:4 minutes

A vegan sushi platter made by Yoko Hasebe. The Los Angeles-based Japanese chef, who opened a takeaway service during the pandemic, is on a mission to ‘evolve sushi’ using locally grown produce. Photo: TNS

Published: 6:15pm, 18 May 2023

Growing up in Saitama, Japan, Yoko Hasebe didn’t dream of sushi. From the age of seven, she studied ballet and later jazz dance at the Nihon University College of Art in Tokyo.

Fate took her to California and a series of jobs at Japanese restaurants, where she found her way into the kitchen, making maki – rice and seaweed rolls – alongside sushi chefs like Kimiyasu Enya, of Californian sushi chain Enya, and Morihiro Onodera, of Los Angeles sushi restaurant Morihiro.

“I loved being in the kitchen. At first I didn’t think I would be able to do both – being a dancer and a chef – but I tried anyway,” Hasebe, 29, says.

Between auditions, she learned to make rolls and how to cut fish and eventually prepare nigiri sushi – the hand-shaped style of sushi that is composed of seasoned rice topped with raw or preserved seafood – for omakase menus.

Hasebe pursued dance before starting her career as a chef making plant-based sushi. Photo: TNS

In 2018, when more customers began asking for vegetarian options, Hasebe was asked to design vegan sushi. The requests planted the seed for her future.

“People were asking for it so much,” she says. “We had a couple vegan rolls and they were popular.” As a result, she traded mackerel for mushrooms, tuna belly for tomatoes, octopus for okra.