Sushi around the world, from California rolls and Philadelphia rolls to Italian su-sci with burrata, mortadella, olives and other Mediterranean ingredients

Chefs across the world freely play around with sushi, adding non-traditional ingredients and inventing twists and concoctions that make would purists recoil

The Japanese inventor of the California roll created the recipe in Canada, while Italians can find ingredients such as burrata, capers and olives in their sushi

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Sushi at Tojo’s Restaurant in Canada. While sushi chefs in Japan rarely take risks with recipes, people in the rest of the world are adding non-traditional ingredients to theirs. Photo: Leila Kwok

Published: 4:15am, 30 Apr 2021Updated: 10:04am, 30 Nov 2023

In Japan, the road to becoming a sushi chef is long and slow. Apprentices spend years doing small tasks for their master before they’re allowed to start making the shari (vinegared rice).

Creativity behind the sushi counter is subtle, and aficionados will speak with reverence about a specific chef’s lineage – under which master he worked for and how long it took before he was allowed, with the master’s blessing, to set up his own sushi restaurant.

Outside Japan and a few other countries, though, almost anything goes.

Chefs across the world freely play around with sushi, adding non-traditional ingredients and inventing twists and wacky concoctions that make would purists recoil.

Hidekazu Tojo is the pioneer of “Western-style” sushi. Photo: Leila Kwok

Cherry tomatoes, black truffles, Philadelphia cream cheese and Italian mozzarella are just a few of the ingredients used that show the infinite ways in which sushi is reinterpreted.

Sushi master chef Hidekazu Tojo, head of Tojo’s Restaurant in Vancouver, is the pioneer of “Western-style” sushi. Soon after moving to Canada in 1971, he came up with the Tojo maki, commonly known as the California roll.