“I came [to NYC] to pass on authentic sushi making techniques to the next generation of chefs,” says Icca chef and owner Kazushige Suzuki. “I believe that’s my calling.” After spending 10 years at Sushi Ginza Onodera, one of Tokyo’s best sushi restaurants, Suzuki does indeed have much to teach. But the chef is never done learning either.
The omakase-style spot, which is among Eater NY’s 32 top-tier sushi restaurants, is known for chef Suzuki’s respect for traditional Edomae sushi techniques with a creative twist, like in the restaurant’s cold horsehair crab pasta dish.
“It’s typical to have horsehair crabs at sushi restaurants,” he says as he boils, cleans, and deshells meat from different parts of the enormous, spiky crab. “We thought it would be interesting to come up with a pasta dish.”
For this dish, he cooks angel hair pasta, lets it cool, and then douses it in a creamy asparagus sauce. From there, he tops it with a heaping scoop of the freshly shredded bits of horsehair crab.
“I go outside of my specialty [with] Italian cuisine,” he says as he plates the bright green colored dish. “I love learning new things and putting them together.”
Watch the full video to see how chef Suzuki creates other dishes like abalone liver nigiri, smoked firefly squid, and more.