Sushi samba london how to#

Sushi samba london how to#

Right now, everyone is trying to see how to maintain the flow of people that’s really the No. The bottom line is people will go where they feel good, so we’re trying to make people feel better. We’re trying to provide better hospitality-that is probably our main focus-how to improve hospitality not just in a bad economy, but even when it is booming. How has the economic downturn affected business?īasically, we’re just trying to improve on every aspect of the business we’re trying to have better service and better food and make sure all of this is maintained. When you serve a Mojito with that kind of food or play certain music, it sends a very clear message.ĮDUCATION: Cornell University School of Hotel Administration BIRTHPLACE: Israel CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: created the SushiSamba chain in 1999 established the first-ever ski resort in Israel in the 1970s created Yellowfin restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y., in 1996 in 1998 opened the Kit Kat Club, which housed the Broadway musical “Cabaret,” in Manhattan PERSONAL: married with children I said to myself we could shake that up, add something to it, basically something flamboyant like Brazil, and came up with SushiSamba: food with energy, ambience, an experience. They don’t turn right or left with sushi in Japan. It has history and tradition, and people need to follow certain rules.

But Japanese sushi is very straight, very well thought out and disciplined food. Fifteen or 20 years ago it was available in less places, but there was no question that Japanese food would be very popular. You can find it today in supermarkets in every place around the world. There are two things you are dealing with: on one side you have sushi, which is, nowadays, something that is very common worldwide. There was no question I wanted to do something with that, and a few years later the first restaurant. The first words that came out of my mouth were, “Wow, this is sushi samba!” It stuck with me, and I trademarked the name. I thought maybe it was a convention, but was told they were working at the airport and lived in Brazil. On one of my trips to São Paulo back in 1992, I went to the airport and saw that most of the people there were Japanese. And I loved Japanese food, design and culture. I used to go quite a few times to Brazil. I was very much into the Brazilian culture for a long time. Where did the concept for SushiSamba come from? The casual-dining chain will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2009.

Bokovza recently presided over the opening of the New York-based chain’s latest unit at the Palazzo hotel in Las Vegas. Melding together the cuisines, cultures and flavors of Japan and Brazil, SushiSamba now has sales of more than $40 million a year. Shimon Bokovza enjoys taking traditional themes and ideas and giving them an unpredictable twist, as his seven-unit SushiSamba chain illustrates.