Meet the Japanese chef making vegan sushi and omakase in Vancouver’s Chinatown
Japanese chef Akiko Gulkison is on a mission to reveal vegetables’ hidden powers at her restaurants in Vancouver, Canada
At Vancouver’s Cofu Chinatown restaurant, Japanese chef Akiko Gulkison and her sous chef prepare delectable dishes: miso-glazed aubergine with snow fungus wrapped with nori and rice, radicchio cured in between sheets of kombu, and steamed soy milk custard seasoned with reduced sake and Japanese plum.
They are part of an 18-course omakase vegan menu Gulkison created, to showcase vegetables as the star of Japanese cuisine – not the traditional seafood or meat.
The vision was to expose the untapped potential of vegetables, mushrooms and other plant-based dishes, she says. “Vegetables have so many hidden talents.”
Gulkison sources mostly locally grown vegetables and caters not only to vegans and people allergic to gluten and nuts, but also certain Buddhists who do not eat pungent vegetables such as garlic, spring onions and onions, as they are believed to disturb the mind and excite the senses.
“I thought about how to create vegetables well,” says the 42-year-old chef who adopted a vegan lifestyle more than a year ago. “I have [culinary] skills, but not the skills to cut fish, or make sushi, like sushi chefs all over Vancouver. So maybe I can win [over diners] by using only vegetables.”
Cofu Chinatown opened in 2025, but it is not Gulkison’s first vegan venture. Cofu Pressed Sushi, located on Vancouver’s Granville Island, launched in 2021.