On November 1, 2026, a new restaurant that blends teppanyaki, French cuisine and sushi, Sushi Taiyo (鮨 泰洋), will hold its grand opening in Osaka's Minami area. It serves an omakase course of 15 dishes that combines sushi, French cooking and teppan dishes, priced at 4,400 yen per person (tax included).
Sushi Taiyo is the newest restaurant of the 881 Sushi Group (881鮨グループ, 881GP), which runs sushi restaurants headed by young chefs in Tokyo and Osaka, including Sushi Yamato (鮨大和), where reservations are booked half a year in advance.
Standing at the counter is Taiyo Kajiwara (梶原泰洋), a chef from Fukuoka Prefecture. He started cooking at the age of 5 and began his career as a chef at 19. After gaining experience in French cuisine at a restaurant inside The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka, he is now taking on the world of sushi.
The restaurant combines seasonal ingredients from his hometown of Fukuoka and the rest of Kyushu with the sauce techniques he developed in French cooking, as well as sushi and teppanyaki. Guests can enjoy not only the flavors but also the sounds and aromas from the teppan, the flames, and conversation with the chef, in a new kind of counter experience.
Changing the Image That Sushi Restaurants Are Intimidating and French Dining Is Stiff
Many people feel nervous when they enter a high-end sushi restaurant. French dining, too, tends to bring to mind table manners and a formal atmosphere.
Sushi Taiyo aims to be a restaurant that removes both of these impressions. Guests enjoy the food while talking with the head chef, and customers seated next to each other can laugh together naturally. Rather than looking up at the chef nervously, guests help complete the day's counter together with him.
While valuing culinary skill and quality, the restaurant creates a space where anyone can enjoy the food freely.
Fukuoka and Kyushu in Season, Turned Into Plates You Can Only Have That Day
The cooking at Sushi Taiyo is built on ingredients from Kajiwara's hometown of Fukuoka and the wider Kyushu region.
The restaurant does not serve a fixed fish or dish all year round. It chooses whichever seafood, vegetables, meat and other ingredients are in good condition at the time, depending on the season and what comes in. After checking the flavor, aroma, fat and texture of each ingredient, Kajiwara decides which of sushi, French cooking or teppanyaki best brings out its appeal.
For example, when the season and supply allow, a dish using raw mackerel, which has long been enjoyed in Fukuoka, may appear. Mackerel is just one example of the Fukuoka ingredients used. Rather than repeating a fixed set of dishes, the course aims to offer new Fukuoka and Kyushu ingredients with each season.
Kajiwara speaks of his feelings for the ingredients of his hometown.
"Fukuoka and Kyushu have many delicious ingredients. Mackerel is just one example. I would be happy if guests in the Kansai region could also feel that Fukuoka's ingredients have this kind of deliciousness."
French Cooking From The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka, Reworked for Sushi
Kajiwara's career so far has been in French and Italian cooking. At a restaurant inside The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka, he worked in the French kitchen.
Rather than reproducing that experience as French dishes as they are, he reworks it for sushi. Sushi is paired with a sauce that brings out the flavor of the ingredient, and fish is layered with a sauce made from rice. Considering the fat, aroma and texture of the fish and how it goes with the sushi rice, the role of the sauce changes from ingredient to ingredient.
The purpose is not to make the flavor heavier by adding sauce. The sauce is meant to bridge the fish and the rice and convey the appeal of the ingredient more clearly.
Japanese, French and Italian cooking: rather than showing the boundaries between them, the dishes connect each technique naturally within a single plate. The aim is for guests to simply feel "delicious" before they stop to wonder, "Is this sushi or French food?"
"There Is No Right Answer in Cooking": Searching Through Hundreds of Combinations
Kajiwara holds on to one belief.
"I think there is no right answer in cooking."
There are hundreds, even thousands, of possible combinations of ingredients. Even a dish that tastes good now may have a combination that makes it even better. For that reason, rather than holding on to a fixed right answer, he looks for new kinds of deliciousness while facing the ingredients in front of him.
That there is no right answer does not mean anything goes. It means understanding the strengths of the ingredients, layering technique, and finishing each plate so that the guests who actually eat it feel "I want to eat this again." Continuing to search for that answer is Kajiwara's commitment to his cooking.
Flames at the Sushi Counter: Teppan Dishes to Enjoy With All Five Senses
A teppan (iron griddle) is installed at the counter of Sushi Taiyo.
The reason for using a teppan is not only to add meat dishes. It is so that guests can enjoy the very moment a dish is born, not just the finished dish:
- The sound of ingredients cooking
- The aroma that rises
- The flames that go up right in front of you
- The anticipation until the dish is done
Depending on the season and supply, teppan dishes using ingredients such as Japanese black beef (kuroge wagyu) may appear in the course. The ingredients are not fixed, and the way they are grilled and finished changes according to the condition of the meat, fish and vegetables that day.
The course moves from a quiet time of savoring sushi to a time when the teppan's sounds and flames liven up the whole counter. It is composed so that not only taste but also the guests' emotions are moved.
The Whole Course as One Story, Not Just One Delicious Dish
Sushi Taiyo cares about more than the deliciousness of each individual dish. The course is built around these elements:
- Dishes that convey the season in Fukuoka and Kyushu
- Unexpected pairings of sushi and French sauces
- Sound, aroma and heat from the teppan
- Warmth and coolness
- Delicacy and power
- Stillness and surprise
The course is varied so that the same flavors and presentations do not continue. The restaurant aims to be a place where, after the meal, guests remember not only the names of the dishes but also:
- "The moment the flames went up right in front of me"
- "The surprise of sushi and sauce becoming one"
- "The time spent laughing with the head chef and the guest next to me"
Why 15 Dishes Can Be Offered for 4,400 Yen
The 15-dish "teppanyaki x French x sushi" course is offered at 4,400 yen per person (tax included).
The price is kept down not by lowering the quality of the food. Instead, the restaurant takes reservations only and runs two seatings, so it knows in advance how much food it needs. This keeps food waste down, and by focusing on a limited number of seats and a single course, it balances the content of the dishes with the price.
The idea is not to make high-end cuisine something only for special people. The restaurant hopes that younger guests, and those who have felt nervous at sushi counters until now, can freely enjoy a course finished by the chef right in front of them. That thinking is behind the price of 4,400 yen for 15 dishes.
From Holding a Knife at Age 5 to the World of Food and Drink
Kajiwara first held a kitchen knife when he was 5 years old. He learned to cook beside his mother, who loved cooking, and learned how to bring out flavors and how to approach cooking.
In junior high school, he looks back on himself as someone who "did nothing but cause trouble and was irresponsible." Even so, he could not give up on cooking, and bowed his head to his mother, who opposed the idea, so that he could attend a private high school where he could study cooking.
He has worked as a chef since he was 19, learned French and Italian cooking, and gained experience in a French kitchen at a restaurant inside The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka. Now he is taking on the world of sushi.
This is not the success story of a finished chef. It is the challenge of a young chef who is searching for dishes only he can make, by combining the ingredients of his hometown with the skills he has acquired so far.
Store Overview
Sushi Taiyo (鮨 泰洋)
Opening: November 1, 2026
Concept: Teppanyaki x French x Sushi
Address: Green House 2F, 2-23 Soemon-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture
Hours:
- First seating: 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
- Second seating: 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
* Reservations only (two seatings).
Closed: Irregular holidays
Price: Authentic Sushi Course 4,400 yen (tax included)
Drinks: Charged separately
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sushi.taiyo.2026/
Reservations
Reservations can be made through TableCheck.
https://www.tablecheck.com/shops/sushi-taiyou/
A Message From Head Chef Taiyo Kajiwara
What I want to create is not a restaurant you visit once and are done with.
When the season changes, the ingredients change. When the ingredients change, the dishes change.
I want guests to experience the new emotion of enjoying the turning seasons with all five senses each time they visit.
Your "I want to come again" is my greatest joy.
Please enjoy the new sushi experience of 15 dishes. We look forward to welcoming you.
