Daigo Sakai

Born and raised in Fukuoka, Daigo Sakai saved up and moved to Tokyo at age 22, dining at the city's finest sushi restaurants before finding his lifelong master, Mitsuyasu Nagano, at Sushi-dokoro Umi. He trained under Nagano for seven and a half years, absorbing Edomae technique alongside a philosophy of deep appreciation encapsulated in the motto Ryu-Kan-Go-Dou — 'one can only be enlightened by sweat'. He opened Sushi Sakai in Fukuoka's Akasaka district in 2013, relocated to its current Nishi-Nakasu home in 2017, and has held three Michelin stars since 2019.