Tag: Bari

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Bring Your Favorite Bar Home During Quarantine

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Wooooo boy, ain’t we in the throes of it now? Feels like it was just last week when my assignment was simply to go to a bar and let y’all know that service is good and drinks are delicious. Well, shit’s changed, and frankly, it’s our duty to change with it. So let’s go to a bar, virtual-style.

I’ve not been able to go to an actual bar (because quarantine is the responsible thing to do, son!), so I’ve explored many options, including delivery, curbside service, and controlled irresponsibility, which is a thing you do with Clorox wipes, growlers, and general intelligence.

Unless you have written it off because your best friend from high school is an anti-vaxxer or your in-laws are trying to friend you, Facebook has been an astoundingly solid resource for restaurants and bars doing some cool stuff. Most any restaurant that you call is willing to make you drinks to-go, offer wines at a discount, or at least try to offload their selection of beer. They mostly let their deals be known on Facebook, so ignore the friend request from your mother-in-law and check out a menu.

“I don’t have the Facebook!” Neat. You can still navigate to the page and see their specials, you catastrophic moron.

Buster’s Liquors & Wines is doing curbside pick-up from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Place an order by 5:30 p.m. and patiently wait outside, and they’ll bring it to you. This is a great option if you haven’t begun drinking yet but plan to before the sun goes down. Shake up some local vodka and a squeeze from a lime you got from the Blue Monkey walk-in cooler. Log into Google Hangouts and play Jackbox with friends.

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Wiseacre Brewing Co. is doing delivery. I recommend ordering a couple six-packs of Ananda between 1 and 6 p.m., tipping the person who drops it off, and pressure-washing your driveway with your roommates. If there’s any left over, wipe it down real nice with some industrial wipes you got from Highbar Trading and offer it to the gentleman walking his dog down the street. Afterward, settle down on the couch and have a Zoom conference with all your friends that don’t have a pressure washer. Rub it in their faces.

Justin Fox Burks

Drinking local with hurricanes in pouches from Bayou Bar & Grill.

It sure is nice outside! Use the weather to your advantage and walk to your neighborhood watering hole. Mine is Bayou Bar & Grill, which is doing take-out from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Things you can get include incredibly cheap growler fill-ups (especially if you’re in their Mug Club) and drinks in pouches. Because it’s spring break, I opted for a couple hurricanes in pouches and a growler of a local IPA, which I then drank in my front yard as I yelled about the nuances of flight patterns during a pandemic.

Not to be outdone, Slider Inn is doing car bombs to-go, which include a pouch of Guinness and a ramekin of Jameson and Irish cream liqueur. This is great if you want to find out what it’s like to drop a plastic ramekin into a plastic pouch and drink it as fast as you can while watching 30 Rock for the millionth time and playing Hearts on the computer with the people living with you. You get extra points if you then order curbside delivery of a locally owned restaurant and tip outlandishly. My selections the past few days? Bari, Tamboli’s, Huey’s, Young Avenue Deli, Restaurant Iris, Casablanca, and Little Italy.

You know the best part about being asked to stay at home and stop the spread of a lethal virus? First off, it’s responsible at-home consumption of booze acquired from local restaurants, but the second-best thing is camaraderie. No, I’m not advising having a damn parade with children and spit-covered instruments marching through a neighborhood (get your shit together, Central Gardens!). I’m talking about all of us being in this together. And together, we can support our local establishments and, of course, safely consume booze off-premises and in the comfort of our meticulously clean living rooms and/or porches, or really anywhere you can pour a tall one. Cheers to staying safe, everyone.

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Cover Feature News

Kitchen Confidential

David Krog looked up to the chefs when he was a busboy.

“They were so proficient at their craft, a craft that I knew nothing about but definitely wanted to,” he says. “I wanted to be a part of that pirate group of bad boys.”

Ten years later, Krog was a chef at high-profile restaurants. He prepared intricate dishes such as foie gras torchon — even though he’d already drunk six beers and a pint of Jack Daniel’s. “You know what kept me alive in those kitchens all those years? Just straight muscle memory,” he says. “My brain wasn’t firing correctly.”

His career peaks included being chosen by actor Morgan Freeman to open the old Madidi restaurant in 1999 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. His lows included having seizures in the kitchen because he hadn’t had a drink for three hours.

Krog, 43, who is three-and-a-half years sober, now creates French-inspired Southern cuisine as executive chef of Interim Restaurant. He will be a participating chef in the Memphis Food & Wine Festival October 14th at Memphis Botanic Garden.

“We were very excited to add him to the roster,” says Nancy Kistler, the festival’s event planner, director, and one of the founders. “I think he brings a lot of talent. The dish that he’s going to prepare for the festival is going to be crazy good.”

Krog was born in Tampa, Florida, and says he was “pretty wild” as a kid. He hated school and loved the outdoors and skateboarding. “I had a lot going on in my head,” he says. “I just couldn’t sit very well. I still don’t sit well, which is a good thing.”

More than just muscle memory — Chef David Krog keeps his cool and serves up “pretty food” as the executive chef at Interim Restaurant.

He fell in love with the kitchen while pouring water at an Italian restaurant. “I took a pay cut from water boy to become a dishwasher. And from doing the dishes, they let you cut onions. And on and on.”

In 1992, Krog moved to Memphis, where most of his family lived. He worked at a couple of restaurants before enrolling at the Memphis Culinary Academy. After he graduated, Krog landed a job at the legendary La Tourelle restaurant, where he worked for two-and-a-half years.

Then, in 1999, Freeman, who often ate at La Tourelle, called Krog and asked if he wanted to help open Madidi. “It was a life-changing money offer,” Krog remembers, “and it was a life-changing career opportunity.”

Before taking the job, Krog talked to Bill Luckett, Freeman’s business partner at Madidi, on the phone. “I told him that I had 26 hours of tattoo work. My ears were stretched 9/16ths, and I had nine piercings. I didn’t think that I wanted to drive an hour and 15 minutes for him to look at me and tell me that this was not going to happen.”

Krog got the job. “I was way over my head.” But, he adds, “I was too ignorant to be scared.”

Krog began experimenting with drugs when he lived in Clarksdale.

“That was the beginning,” he says. “That was where I had no guidance. I was the executive chef of this restaurant. I’ve got everyone in the world telling me I’m this badass and all of this, and I was just drinking heavily.”

Krog just drank beer at that point. He drank a lot of it, but he continued to excel at his craft. “I was pulling it off,” he remembers. “I was getting great reviews.”

Then, after a hernia operation, he became hooked on painkillers. “They were Lortabs,” he says. “I could afford them, and the source was there.”

Krog never worried about getting in trouble for his substance abuse. “I used to always say, ‘When you’re talented, people always afford your habits.'”

He eventually went into rehab, but his drinking and his opioid abuse continued. “I was drinking back then from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed.”

Then Krog began making management mistakes. “Not that any 27-year-old makes the best decisions anyway,” he says. “But you couple in all the booze and my ego and it was destined to come crumbling down.”

He ended up quitting his job at Madidi in 2003: “I left because my ego and my addiction were all wrapped up into this bad thing, which didn’t get any better.”

Says Luckett: “David was the most talented, pure chef we ever had.”

Krog then worked at restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi, before returning to Memphis in 2005, where he got a job working for chef/owner Jason Severs at Bari Ristorante.

Then, during a party at a friend’s house, Krog tried heroin for the first time. After that, he says, “I just drank and did drugs — low dosage — all day long.”

His habits didn’t stop him from cooking and creating dishes. “I was on heroin,” he says. “If the dosage was right, I was at my creative peak. Or at least I thought I was. But it just was not going to work. My lifestyle was not going to work for [Severs].”

Krog went to a psychiatrist because of his opioid abuse. “I ended up on suboxone, which is a drug they give you to come off of heroin,” he says.

He then landed a job as executive chef at The Tennessean, a Collierville restaurant housed in train cars, but his troubles followed him. “I had some ups and downs there. I drank too much on a couple of occasions.” When that restaurant went out of business, Krog took a job at a country club. He drank six beers before work, a 32-ounce beer on his way to work, and whatever he could sneak during work.

“I drank at work. I had to,” he says. “If I didn’t, I would have seizures.” The seizures, which happened if he didn’t have a drink every three hours, often left him unconscious on the floor with his tongue and lip bloody.

Then, in 2010, Krog got a phone call from Erling Jensen, chef/owner of Erling Jensen: The Restaurant. He said, ‘You don’t work where you work anymore.'”

Krog met with Jensen. “He said, ‘How is your drugs?’ And I said, ‘I’ve been clean since ’09.’ Which was the truth. And he said, ‘How is your booze?’ And I said, ‘On my own time.’ Which was a complete lie.”

Jensen knew he was lying, Krog says. “You can’t hide it. But he hired me.”

Working in Jensen’s kitchen was hard work. “It sucks when you’re drunk, half-drunk, and everything. But I was able to maintain some level with him because I really wanted to be there. I was a fan of his food. I felt that the food that he put out was honest. Even drunk, I was smart enough to pay attention to what this man was doing because I wanted to get this from him. So, I think of Erling’s as a finishing school for me on a lot of levels.”

And Krog says, “He saw something in me that I had lost a long time ago. He would call me out for stinking like booze. And I would blame it on the night before, knowing that I drank three beers before I got to work. And he would sometimes bust me drinking kitchen wine.”

But Jensen kept Krog. “He kept letting me get higher in the ranks,” Krog says. “I think part of his thinking was the more responsibility that he gave me, the better I would be. But I could only do that for a little while.”

Krog didn’t get better. “I was so sick and physically addicted to alcohol that I had seizures at Erling’s.” But, he says, “I was also tough as nails. And I think Erling liked that about me. I was not afraid to go to work. I was on time.”

Over the next three years, Jensen whispered in his ear, “He’d say, ‘You need to do some soul searching,'” Krog remembers. “Or he’d pull me aside and tell me to straighten up: ‘You’ve got to watch your drinking. Your lifestyle.'” By this time, Krog was drinking 18 beers and two pints of Jack Daniel’s a day. “It took so much work for me to stay level. I’d get up to pee, and I’d have to take a shot of Jack Daniel’s to go back to sleep.”

Everything came to a head at the restaurant. “Erling fired me after a shift for drinking on the job. He was more pissed at me than I’ve ever seen in any man.”

Jensen told Krog to get out. “I was so angry with him. I rolled up my knives, and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t leave with a bang. I went straight to the beer store.”

Krog hit rock bottom. Krog had met his future wife, Amanda, at a bar. She was also an alcoholic. He had a violent seizure while they were driving to Thanksgiving dinner at his mother’s house. “We had to have booze delivered to the car.”

Amanda went to a treatment center. Krog got a job at an after-hours bar. “Inside of me, I really wanted to get sober, but I didn’t know how.”

After her treatment, Amanda “came out and she’s fresh. She’s beautiful. She looks better than ever. And I’m like, ‘I want that. I want that right there. I don’t know how to get that, but I want that.'”

Amanda drove Krog to a detox center.

“They medically detoxed me,” he says. “They give you medicine so you don’t have seizures.” He was free to leave, but he stayed to finish the treatment. “I wanted to be better. I wanted my craft back. I wanted the respect.”

Krog hasn’t had a drink since March 9, 2014. His last drink was “the last shot of Burnett’s blue top vodka in the parking lot on my way to detox. I’m an alcoholic. True alcoholic. It’s a chemical thing. And if I’m not, I will not try to test that.”

Chef Mac Edwards asked Krog to work sauté at his Farmer restaurant. Krog told him, “I don’t want to be around the kitchen. I’ll drink. I’ll do drugs. That’s what I do. That’s what that place does to me.”

Edwards said, “You’ll be here at 2 Saturday.”

“He had all the faith in me that I would be able to step right in there and be okay,” Krog remembers. But he was terrified: “All that drunken muscle memory was gone. I couldn’t do what I had done for 20 years. I was re-learning how to hold my knife.” After six months, Krog’s friend, chef Duncan Aiken, told him he should call Jason Dallas, who was executive chef at Interim. “He said, ‘You guys would get along. You both have similar styles. You both put out pretty food.’

“Well, I hadn’t put out pretty food in a long time. In my head I could do these things. But I could not execute them.”

Krog met with Dallas. “I said, ‘I am an alcoholic. I don’t drink. And I don’t do drugs. And I have only not drank and not done drugs for six months.'”

Dallas hired him.

“When I first got here, I looked like I was scared to death,” Krog says. “This kitchen can be intimidating.” But Dallas let him grow “as fast as I wanted to.”

Amanda and David lost their first child, who died at 28 weeks old. “We lost a baby in sobriety, and we’re together. We just got stronger and stronger and stronger.” Krog saw Jensen for the first time at the baby’s funeral. “He said, ‘You should be damn proud of yourself.'”

A little over a year ago, Krog became Interim’s executive chef. He hires as many young line cooks as he can, “teaching lifestyle, integrity — being the same person here as you are out there. And trying to get them before they get to a point where booze and drugs look really good.”

Last September, he and Amanda were married. In May, they had a baby girl, Doris Marie.

“At a year sober, I went and had my physical,” Krog says. “My liver count came back perfect. Kidney function perfect. Blood sugar perfect.”

He bought a home in East Memphis. “I don’t want to go to another city. My wife is here. My family is here.” He says he wants to be part of the upswing of the Memphis culinary scene.

“David was always a joy to work with in the kitchen,” says Dallas, now sous chef at Cru, a French restaurant in Moreland Hills, Ohio. “I look back at some of the great times in the kitchen together. It’s been incredible to watch him grow.”

Jensen recommended Krog for the Memphis Wine & Food Festival. He admires Krog’s “intensity in the kitchen” and his “attention to details.” And, Jensen says, “I value his his friendship a whole, whole lot. He’s a straight-up guy. Honest. Hard working. I’m very proud of him.”

“The future is bright,” Krog says. “But it’s contingent upon me doing what it takes not to drink. Because if I drink, as they say, my entire life could fit in a shot glass.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Bari’s Speakeasy Bar Opens this Weekend


Bari Ristorante e Enoteca will open a new second-floor bar to the public this weekend.

It’s a speakeasy called Dodici. The name means “12,” a nod to how many the bar seats. Seating is first-come, first-serve.

Vincent Hale will man the bar, and there will be craft cocktails and nicer bottles of wine.

Dodici is open Friday and Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. The bar can be rented out for private parties.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Whirlwind Tour of New Memphis Breakfasts and Brunches

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

In season two of Parks and Recreation, Leslie Knope famously wondered, “Why would anyone ever eat anything besides breakfast food?” Why indeed. Breakfast isn’t just delicious, it’s also devilishly trendy.

As usual, Memphis finds itself at the bleeding edge of this trend. Last month, we scored a breakfast-only restaurant near Poplar and Perkins, and three culinary standbys have lately started serving brunch. So grab a mimosa and your sexiest Sunday sunglasses: We’re going on a whirlwind tour.

If we do this right, you may never have to eat lunch or dinner again.

There was a moment, two years ago, when Tressa Ogles got serious about pancakes. She had just returned from her Saturday morning jog to find her husband and two daughters making a big mess in the kitchen. For some moms, it would have been a bummer. But Ogles saw a business opportunity.

“Pancakes are a part of our family tradition,” she confesses. “My husband used to make them with his mother every Saturday when he was a little boy. We had been talking for a while about turning it into a restaurant. That day, we just looked at each other and said, I think we can do this.”

And thus was born Staks, a new breakfast joint in East Memphis. You think you know pancakes? You don’t know pancakes. At least not until you’ve tried the lemon-ricotta, Oreo-praline, or (my favorite) birthday cake flavors. Feeling adventurous? Take a dip in the deep fryer and order the Pancake Beignets ($5.95), dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with caramel sauce.

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If possible, the food is rendered even tastier by the décor. Everything about this place — from the Tiffany-teal walls to the mercury-glass mirrors to the whisk-shaped pendant lamps—is Instagram-ready. Heck, it’s like eating in a jewel box. Best part? You can sit at a community table and cook your own pancakes at a piping-hot griddle.

From East Memphis to Midtown, where foodie favorite Bari Ristorante has recently started serving brunch. Since they opened in 2002, owners Rebecca and Jason Severs have had a bracingly simple food philosophy: source the best ingredients and don’t mess with them too much.

“Jason’s mother is from a tiny town outside of Bari, in Italy,” Rebecca says. “This is the food that he grew up eating, and we wanted to share that.”

That distinguished pedigree is evident in dishes like the Bruschetta with Marmalades and Mascarpone ($10). The house-made bread is light and crusty, and the exquisite jams are prepared by Jason himself (on my visit, they had lemon, grape, and mixed berry). Also recommended: the Grilled Polenta with Pancetta and Caramelized Onion ($12) and a tall glass of bartender Vincent Hale’s sangria ($9).

Of course, some days you don’t feel fancy. Some days, you just want a biscuit. If that’s your speed, saunter on over to Belly Acres. The farm-to-table restaurant has recently opened for breakfast on weekends, and Overton Square may never be the same.

So what’s the secret to the perfect, flaky biscuit?

“Wet batter, fold it eight times. No more, no less,” chef Rob Ray says. “If you overdo it, then the gluten gets all worked up. Then you’re just making a bun.”

He ain’t just whistling Dixie. These are seriously good, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits. You can order them with gravy, but the Chicken Biscuits ($3.50) are even better. Made with free-range chicken that has been marinated in buttermilk and pickle brine, then fried, they’re warm and crispy, like waking up on grandma’s farm.

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Bleu chef Ana Gonzalez

But the innovation award goes to Ana Gonzalez, chef at Bleu Restaurant & Lounge in the Westin. She took a traditional Mexican breakfast — huevos rancheros — and deconstructed it.

The result is Nachos Rancheros ($8), which made its debut last weekend. Here, house-made tortilla chips cozy up to cheese sauce, refried beans, and a fried egg. Top it off with avocado wedges and a bit of pico de gallo, and you’ve got a brunch so tasty, you’ll wonder why you never thought of it. Pairs well with a bloody mary ($10) and a pair of dark sunglasses to ward off paparazzi.

“It’s best on Sunday, when you have a hangover,” says Gonzalez, with a mischievous wink. “That’s why we’re open until 4 p.m.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

3 Angels Closing, Maximo’s Opening

The owners of 3 Angels on Broad announced yesterday that they are closing the diner on Sunday, September 27th.

Amy and Julio Zuniga will open Maximo’s on Broad on October 3rd or 7th. 

From the release: “Maximo’s on Broad will feature a tapas menu and a more extensive wine list. The focus will be on gourmet, creative, fusion cuisine.”

Amy Zuniga says they’re aiming for a change in ambience.

The menu is still a work in progress. The tapas menu will probably have a Spanish influence. Zuniga has she’s not sure which dishes, such as the Colossus, from 3 Angels menu will remain.

They’ve knocked out the ceiling to expose the beams. There is a new bar. 

Rebecca and Jason Severs of Bari opened 3 Angels in 2010. The angels are their sons. They wanted a place where kids and parents could eat happily together and where folks in the restaurant industry could get a bite to eat late-night. 

The Zunigas (Amy is Rebecca’s sister) took over 3 Angels in 2014. 

Maximo’s will offer lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch. The dining room is getting a facelift, according to the release. 

A grand opening is tentatively set for Friday, October 9th.  

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Cover Feature News

The Sultan of Sushi

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Jimmy Ishii never sleeps.
Sure, he grabs a catnap here and there, but for nearly 20 hours a day, the restaurateur is on the move — working, driving, teaching cooking classes, or closing his next deal. A Memphis resident for decades, Ishii’s energy level is more in tune with his native Japan. He’s constantly on his cell phone — talking food, music, and travel — the words tumbling from his mouth as fast as he can shape them.

Ishii was born in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Kofu, the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture, which is located on the island of Honshu. He learned English as a teenage exchange student in New York. A few years later, he decided to attend college at St. Louis University. In the late 1970s, he began working for Robata of Japan, the sister company of the Benihana restaurant chain. Then Benihana offered him a permanent job and a green card to go with it.

“Benihana brought me to Memphis in the early 1980s,” Ishii explains. “I worked for them for a long time, and then they asked me to be their head executive chef in Chicago. It was a very big promotion for me, but I decided to open my own place, a Memphis sushi restaurant, and so I gave them one year’s notice.”

In those days, Memphians viewed Japanese food as a novelty. In fact, eating raw fish was a relatively new notion, even in Japan. As documented by author Trevor Corson in The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket, coastal fisherman began packing fish into jars with cooked rice and selling the preserved delicacy to the aristocracy nearly a thousand years ago, but sushi as we know it didn’t come into existence until the mid-1800s. Although sushi stalls proliferated on the streets of Tokyo, occupying Allied forces banned them shortly after World War II. The food didn’t appear stateside until the 1960s, when a Los Angeles-based sushi bar called Tokyo Kaikan became a big hit with the Hollywood set.

Fast-forward 20 years. Benihana and Nagasaki Inn were Memphis’ only flashy, slice-and-dice hibachi steak houses, while Edo and Sakura focused on traditional dishes like yakitori and gyoza. Sushi, in its native form, was nonexistent in the Bluff City.

“On Wednesday nights, Edo had sushi,” Ishii remembers, “but they made it in the kitchen, not at a sushi bar like they do in Japan.”

His idea for a sushi restaurant was a hot concept, and by 1988 Ishii was ready to sign a lease in the Regalia shopping center, located on Poplar Avenue just east of I-240. Then he heard about a new development a few blocks off Walnut Grove Road, near Baptist East Hospital, where the rent was a lot cheaper, and he quickly modified his plans to fit the new space. The doors at Sekisui in Justin Fox Burks

Humphreys Center opened in September 1989.

“I didn’t want to compete with Edo or Sakura,” Ishii says. “I wanted to open an upscale restaurant with more seats. I tried to make it authentic, with a tatami room and a sushi bar,” he adds, describing the conventional Japanese décor of straw floor mats and shoji room dividers, made high-tech with the addition of large-screen television sets that broadcast sumo wrestling matches around the clock.

Initially, banks were reluctant to gamble on his idea. Perhaps they thought the then-28-year-old entrepreneur was in over his head or that sushi was a short-lived fad. Either way, several would-be investors flipped through Ishii’s inch-thick business plan and shook their heads no.

“A small bank, the Community Bank of Germantown, finally financed me,” Ishii says. “They were the only ones willing to give me that $75,000 chance. For the first five years we were open, I didn’t take a day off, and we were open seven days a week, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Super Bowl Sunday.”

Today, Ishii owns a travel company, eight area Japanese restaurants, and nine more scattered throughout the Southeast, in cities such as New Orleans, Little Rock, Jacksonville, Nashville, and Chattanooga. He’s a major investor in Excel, Inc., an Alabama-based supplier to Japan’s cultured-pearl industry. He’s also a partner in a handful of high-profile (and diverse) Memphis restaurants, including Bari Ristorante, Dish, and Beale Street’s EP Delta Kitchen & Bar, which opened earlier this year.

“Jimmy is a very genuine, giving person,” says Rebecca Severs, who, with her husband Jason, owns and operates Bari. She initially worked at Koto, a now-defunct Ishii restaurant, while Jason cooked at the Cooper-Young nightspot Melange, which is now Dish.

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“When we decided we wanted to open our own restaurant, we asked Jimmy to be our partner,” Rebecca says. “In November, we’ll be open five years. I don’t think local diners have a sense of what he’s involved in. He’s all over Memphis, and he’s always looking for the next thing.”

Ishii wasn’t familiar with the Adriatic fare offered at Bari, says chef Jason Severs. “We went to Italy together, and I showed him what typical life was like there,” he says. “Jimmy couldn’t believe how much raw seafood they eat. Now, he wants to take me to Japan.”

Ishii’s Japanese heritage influences his interest in other cultures, Rebecca says. “He wants people to experience different things, and he realizes there’s a market for it,” she explains. “Jimmy brings a lot of Japanese friends in here for dinner, and then he takes them down to EP for entertainment.”

Chef Erling Jensen also enlisted Ishii for help when he opened his namesake restaurant on South Yates Road in 1996. “We met in the late ’80s, and when we opened, he was one of the partners here, although we bought him out two or three years later,” says the Danish-born Jensen. “Jimmy has put a lot of people in Memphis in business.”

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“The customers don’t get to see how fresh the fish is, but that’s the hardest part of this business,” Ishii says one morning, as he glances over his inventory and discusses placing a seafood order with one of his Japanese purveyors. “I believe I’m the first to bring big-eyed sushi-grade tuna to Memphis. They used to come on Greyhound buses twice a week from Chicago. Now, I get them FedExed here directly from Hawaii or from Los Angeles via Northwest Airlines.”

Twenty-seven sushi chefs — there are a few females and just seven Japanese natives in the bunch — prepare rolls and nigiri in Ishii’s Memphis-area restaurants.

“Real sushi, or nigiri, is small, and it [consists of] rice and fish,” Ishii notes. “Americans like the cream cheese and the fried ingredients. They get excited about California rolls. In Japan, that’s not even available.”

Another difference is how Americans order sushi. In Memphis, diners fill out a sheet with their selection, but in Japan, it’s always chef’s choice.

“We try to do that here,” Ishii says. “My chefs have to really communicate with the customers. They get instant feedback. This isn’t convenience-store sushi. Every part of the order is fresh.”

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Once or twice a month, Ishii also teaches sushi-rolling classes for Viking Cooking School, locally and at locations in Atlanta, Nashville, St. Louis, and Greenwood, Mississippi. At the brand-new Viking facility at the Park Place Mall in East Memphis, he carefully guides his students through the construction of a California roll, a cone-shaped hand roll, and a maki-style roll, which might include a few types of fish, diced vegetables, and spices. He gently talks his way through the process, but his hands fly as he applies a precise amount of sushi rice to a sheet of dark green nori and piles on the ingredients. Then he effortlessly rolls the entire shebang into a perfect cigar shape and magically waves his knife until he has a plateful of beautifully arranged sushi.

The novices watch, slack-jawed, then try to imitate the master. Half an hour later, they’re still wrestling with sticky rice grains and soggy nori paper, flakes of spicy tuna adhering everywhere but within the roll. Meanwhile, Ishii putters about, creating works of art out of octopus, daikon radishes, and pickled ginger.

It’s not that he’s a bad teacher — Ishii has the patience of Job and enough self-restraint to keep from laughing at his ham-fisted students. But with every lesson, Ishii proves that two decades of sushi-rolling practice cannot be distilled into a two-hour workshop. Even so, the chance to work alongside him is irresistible, and the class is perennially sold out.

As a businessman, Ishii seems to have the Midas touch, but he has a heartfelt human side as well. Twelve years ago, the restaurateur won the admiration of the Memphis restaurant community when he stepped up to help a friend in desperate need.

“On January 30, 1995, I got the contract for the Midtown Sekisui on Belvedere, and then I met Bernard Chang for Chinese New Year. The next afternoon, I closed the deal on Midtown, and then on February 1st, Bernard got stabbed,” Ishii recalls.

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The chance to work alongside Jimmy Ishii at the Viking Cooking School is irresistible. The class is perennially sold out.

Chang, the proprietor of China Grill, a popular Overton Square eatery, was assaulted by a disgruntled employee. For weeks, he hovered between life and death. Ishii postponed the opening of his new restaurant for six months, stepped in to temporarily helm China Grill, and organized several benefits for his injured friend.

“What he did might have been an unusual move for [other chefs], but that’s just the way Jimmy is, which is always helpful,” Jensen says.

The following July, Bernard passed away, Ishii remembers: “Sure, I’d lost money, but through it all, my business kept growing. I took over Bernard’s concept of pan-Asian food, and that’s when I decided to open Pacific Rim.”

Today, Sekisui Pacific Rim in East Memphis is one of Ishii’s most successful restaurants. The bistro menu includes dozens of seafood offerings, such as escargot, stir-fried and served in a wonton shell, fried oysters topped with fiery Asian salsa, and crab cakes served on a bed of seaweed. Since opening the restaurant in 2000, he’s expanded the concept to St. Louis and Birmingham.

“I’m in nine states now,” the tireless Ishii says proudly. “I drove 170,000 miles last year. Half my time is spent on the road. In Memphis, I have more than 300 employees.

“I have a concept for one more Memphis restaurant,” he adds, his eyes twinkling. “Italian-Japanese food. Zipang,” he says, dreamily. “Maybe it will be an East-meets-West thing.” Echoing the words of Bari’s owners, Ishii adds, “I think the two cuisines are very close. Both have seafood and fresh vegetables and not too many sauces.”

When he’s not talking shop or adding employees to his payrolls or ordering fish for his myriad sushi bars, Ishii is usually dining at one of his many restaurants, checking quality control with a famous friend or two, like actor Steven Seagal, who is a frequent Sekisui customer.

During the rare moments when he’s really off work — at home with his wife and kids — Ishii likes to wind down by watching Japanese TV via satellite.

“I go back to Japan for business five times a year,” he says. “I’m trying to open a restaurant there, but I’m mainly helping with licensing for Elvis Presley Enterprises, and I want to promote the Mississippi blues. I’m currently looking for artists to record here and work in Japan.

“Before, I was concentrating on introducing Japanese culture to Memphis. My next step is to introduce Memphis to Japan,” Ishii continues, a smile on his face as he explains his plan to drive to New Orleans to help another friend, former Elvis guitarist James Burton, obtain a work visa for an upcoming Japanese tour.

It’s a pleasurable chore for the new American citizen, who was sworn in with 109 other immigrants during a ceremony at AutoZone Park on July 4th, 2006.

“I’m really excited for more Japanese people to come and enjoy Memphis,” Ishii says with a grin. “They know Memphis is the home of so much music, but they still ask, ‘Where is it?’ Now I have my tour company, which helps Memphians get educated about Japanese culture and helps Japanese people learn about Memphis.”

He sighs, mock-exhausted, and considers the alternative to his busy life.

“People ask me to sell my businesses,” he says, “but if I did, I wouldn’t be Jimmy Ishii anymore.”