Hokkaido has long had the fish. What it did not have, until the late twentieth century, was the refined Edo technique for turning that fish into edomae sushi. The story of how Tokyo's craft traveled north — and then, improbably, out to the world — runs through one counter in Sapporo. Here is that lineage.
Edomae comes north: Shimamiya and Sushizen
Tsutomu Shimamiya, born in Otaru in 1943, trained in the Tokyo tradition under Nakada Kazuo — of the Nakada counter among Ginza's founding sushi houses. In 1971 he brought that schooling home, opening Sushizen in Sapporo's Susukino district and later moving the main house to Maruyama. He is remembered as the pioneer who established edomae sushi in Hokkaido, marrying Edo technique to the region's extraordinary seafood.
What Edo technique does to northern fish
The marriage matters because Hokkaido's larder is not Tokyo's. The island's icons — uni from Rishiri and Shakotan, botan shrimp, surf clam, autumn ikura, the deep-red kinki of the Okhotsk coast — are usually served raw and unadorned, on the theory that freshness is everything. The edomae counters of Sapporo apply the opposite creed: cure, marinate, age, and simmer, so that a local fish tastes more like itself. Vinegared rice seasoned to stand up to fatty northern fish, soy-marinated salmon roe in place of plain, kombu-cured white fish using the island's own kelp — this is what Shimamiya's school actually changed. Even Hokkaido's famous hairy crab, a winter ritual we cover in the Japan crab season guide, appears at these counters worked into edomae form rather than simply boiled.
From Sapporo to the world
What began as a regional counter became a launch pad. Alumni of the Sushizen tradition spread across Japan, and the lineage reached a global scale through the Onodera group, which built an international sushi operation from a Ginza flagship out to cities including Shanghai, Honolulu, New York and Toronto. A Sapporo-rooted school thus became one of the most globally visible faces of edomae — a striking counterpoint to the introduction-only counters of central Tokyo.
The Sushizen family across Japan
The lineage branches widely:
- Onodera group — Ginza flagship plus overseas counters, run under a global executive-chef system.
- Regional offshoots in Hokkaido and beyond, opened by Sushizen-trained chefs.
- Cross-links into the Tokyo elite, including a celebrated Ginza chef whose training touches both Sushizen and the Sukiyabashi Jiro lineage.
A short text tree:
- Nakada (Ginza) — Nakada Kazuo
- Tsutomu Shimamiya (Sushizen, Sapporo, 1971)
- Onodera group (Ginza and overseas)
- Regional Sushizen offshoots
- Tsutomu Shimamiya (Sushizen, Sapporo, 1971)
Eating this lineage today
For a visitor, the takeaway is simple: world-class edomae is not confined to Tokyo — and in Sapporo it costs meaningfully less. Top counters in the city generally run ¥15,000–30,000 per head, under the ¥30,000–60,000 now standard at Tokyo's elite, and booking is kinder too: lead times of weeks rather than months, and almost none of the introduction-only gatekeeping of the capital. The practical mechanics are in our guides to booking restaurants in Hokkaido and to eating through Sapporo, from Susukino's late-night counters to the Maruyama district where Sushizen's main house settled. Time a winter trip and the same counters put you at the center of crab and uni season. For the fuller picture of how these branches connect, see our family tree of edomae sushi. Tell our desk when you are in Hokkaido and we will find the counter worth your evening.
