After 30 years, beloved Kyushu sushi chef puts away his knives in Virginia Beach

It’s been just 15 minutes since Kyushu Japanese Restaurant opened its doors. But already at the Virginia Beach sushi spot, there are no seats left in the house. Diners are left to wait in still-running cars, or at the dive bar next door, for seats at the table.

And when their turn finally comes, each longtime customer, on their way in the door, takes a moment to pay their respects to a slight-figured man with kind eyes and an easy smile visible even behind his mask — known to all of his customers as Ebi-san. He recognizes each one by name.

Waits at Kyushu aren’t unusual. Even on a normal day before the pandemic, regulars had long known to line up outside before 5:30 p.m. to ensure a seat at chef Mitsunori Ebigasako’s tiny sushi counter, where chef Ebi would offer each customer his expertly cut nigiri and sashimi as a humble offering from chef to diner, an old-world ritual unchanged for generations.

But Nov. 14 was no normal night.

It was the final dinner service for a man who’s become an institution in Hampton Roads, one of the longest-serving Japanese sushi chefs in the region. Ebigasako sold his family’s restaurant on Halloween, after 30 years of hamachi and smothered pork tonkatsu.

It’s time, he says. But his family has also asked the 67-year-old to retire for his health.

“I’ve got to fix my foot,” said Ebigasako, lifting up his pant leg to show a calf that has turned purple and swollen beneath a knee that has long needed surgery. He’s never taken the days off to repair it. “I’ve got a pacemaker,” he said, tapping his chest. “I take medicine every day.”

He will pass on the restaurant as a successful business to its new owners, the Li family, who have spent the last two weeks learning from the Ebigasakos, and will keep Kyushu’s menu and longtime staff. Ebigasako’s wife and partner, Chizuko, will stay aboard a bit longer to help ease the transition.

“She does everything,” said chef Ebi.

“That’s an understatement,” their daughter, Marina, agreed.

But for many diners, Ebi-san forms much of the heart of the restaurant.

“I’ve enjoyed his lunch bento boxes for 30 years,” said Ramon Matawaran, a doctor with a practice in Virginia Beach. “A generous offering by a kind, gentle soul.”

Over three decades, the Ebigasakos built Kyushu into a singular presence in the region, an unpretentious bastion of Japanese cooking with dishes rarely seen elsewhere in these parts — fermented-bean natto, classic izakaya fare like broiled saury or a gentle takosu octopus salad, or nabeyaki udon noodles,

And then, of course, there was the sushi, some of the finest in coastal Virginia, with local-caught tuna generously draped in thick cuts over heirloom Kokohu rice cooked in countless batches and mixed with vinegar.

Ebi and Chizuko worked tirelessly for 13 hours each day, putting in labor others don’t. They fileted their sushi from whole fish rather than order pre-cut slabs, ground mustard fresh with a pestle, mixed teriyaki and tonktasu sauce from scratch, and marinated their mackerel and salmon overnight to develop flavors.

“No bells. No whistles. Just good,” said Steve Attenweiler, a longtime fan of the restaurant who has written about food for The Virginian-Pilot. “Ebi-san’s minimalist dining room at Kyushu often reminded me of a Japanese flower arrangement or a just raked sand garden. There was elegance in the unadorned simplicity of it.”

A sushi pioneer in Virginia Beach

Though the Ebigasakos kept their restaurant resolutely low key, modeled on the family-owned restaurants of Japan, Mitsunori Ebigasako was in many ways a pioneer. He was among the early wave of sushi chefs to bring his home cuisine to American cities beyond the bustling Japanese enclaves of New York and Los Angeles.

He was born in 1953 in Kagoshima, the “Naples of the East” on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, between Kinko Bay and a still-smoldering volcano — in a region known for its rustic noodle pots and white-brothed tonkotsu ramen.

While he was able to find jobs in kitchens there, the rigid restaurant hierarchy in Japan left him mostly washing dishes and chopping vegetables. He had two brothers, he said, and his family could support only one son.

“So two boys must leave the house,” he said, “and pick a country. I chose America.”

Technically, he chose England. But it turned out the economy there wasn’t in great shape. So instead he followed a job offer to New York, he said, cooking first at a spot called Shiko Steak House. He arrived in 1977, the Summer of Sam — and found a serial killer running loose in the city, a crippling heat wave and a July power outage that sent the city into paroxysms of violence and fire.

“I’ll never forget the blackout. People stealing ice cream, clothes from the windows. Big, big trouble,” he said. “And the music was the Eagles. Hotel California.”

Back then, he said, Japanese food was still unfamiliar to most in the United States. “You know bean sprouts?” he laughs. “Americans called them ‘worms.’ Can you believe that? They didn’t like them.”

In 1970s New Jersey, he said, he cooked at what was then the only sushi restaurant in the state. And he quickly picked up a nickname, Ebi — “shrimp,” in Japanese — from Americans who had a hard time remembering his full name. A cartoon shrimp still serves as Kyushu’s logo.

By the time Ebigasako came to Virginia Beach in the late ’80s, as sous chef of the now-closed Tokyo Inn — the exact year is the subject of gentle dispute in the family — sushi was in the middle of a national boom. But there were still only three Japanese spots in the city, he said.

When he opened his own restaurant, Kyushu, with a partner on December 6, 1990, he brought along dishes still unknown in Virginia Beach. This includes a grilled yellowtail collar now known to United States diners as a delicacy.

“He was serving hamachi kama to his customers back when fish wholesalers would give the cut away to thrifty chefs who would serve it as staff meals if customers refused to order it,” Attenweiler told us in a written message.

The same goes for the Hakata-style ramen his home region is famous for, which he served at Kyushu only off-menu in the years before the dish reached the mainstream of American dining.

“Ordering it 10 or more years ago was like sharing a secret hand shake with Ebi-san,” Attenweiler wrote. “A wink and a knowing nod would quickly result in a steaming bowl of opaque bone broth filled with alkaline noodles, bamboo shoots, juicy slices of roast pork and a perfect soft boiled egg, sliced in half and suspended on top, all of it waiting to be slurped up before it got cold.”

Kyushu’s devotion to Japanese flavors found a ready following among sailors who’d spent time abroad, so much so that Ebigasako named Kyushu’s whitefish and seaweed maki for their loyal Navy following. Doctors at nearby hospitals, and the many Japanese employees of The Virginian-Pilot’s printing press, have also made a home away from home at the restaurant, Ebigasako said.

A bittersweet exit

For decades, pretty much every day the restaurant was open, diners could expect to see Ebi at the counter, and Chizuko in the kitchen or at the register. Their daughter Marina, who along with her sister Lisa grew up at the restaurant, marvels at her parents’ work ethic.

“A lot of other owners, when they own a business, they can take some days off and they enjoy themselves. Because you deserve it,” she said. “But him? Day and night, every single day, even on Saturday mornings or Sunday at lunch, all day he would still be here… It’s crazy how much he works. We always said he’s married to the restaurant.”

Ebigasako admitted it will be difficult to leave. And he will miss his many longtime customers, some of whom have become his friends outside the restaurant. On Friday nights for years, he knew would always see Marla and Bill, or the Beedles, or a customer they know only as Chief. At lunchtime, he said, there is Dr. Matawaran.

After so many years working, Ebi doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stay retired for long.

“Even now, even in retirement,” said Marina, “we know that he’s still going to try to leave to take a job, or try to keep busy somehow. His customers keep saying, ‘Tell us where you’re going, we’ll follow!’”

But first, he has to make good on a promise he made, more than 15 years ago, to clean his home garage.

“I cannot step on the floor,” he said, smiling as he mimed the tortuous path he has to take amid an obstacle course of boxes.

But on this Monday, he is instead busy sorting through the evidence of his life at the restaurant he no longer owns. He walks around Kyushu, pointing out the drawings his diners have made for him on post-it notes while waiting for sushi.

“Naruto loves sushi,” said one.

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“The mackerel is so so amazing!” said another.

Ebi proudly displays a signed farewell photograph from his staff — among them longtime servers Chika and Miho, who’ve each stayed with the restaurant more than 15 years.

“Because of him, and because of her,” Miho said, gesturing to each of the Ebigasakos.

Ebi opens his case of knives, the tools of his trade for 30 years. He gently takes each hiragana-emblazoned blade out of its case, meditatively turning the layered steel to one side and then to the other, before putting each one back in its proper place. He bought them so long ago, he said, he doesn’t even remember when he picked them up.

Then, just as gently, he snaps the case closed for perhaps the final time at his restaurant, before taking them home to stay.

Kyushu Japanese Restaurant is located at 400 Newtown Rd. in Virginia Beach, and is open for lunch and dinner Monday through Friday, and dinner Saturday.

Matthew Korfhage, 757-446-2318, matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com