Sushi boom most welcome but good cheap sushi still lacking in Prague, says caterer Bára Rektorová
Sushi has become increasingly common and affordable in Prague in recent years. Contributing to that boom has been Sushi Queen, a catering company founded by Bára Rektorová that takes the “sushi experience” to corporate events and people’s homes.
“It’s funny you should ask, because my first experience with sushi was actually in London, when my friend took me to a sushi bar.
“I had the luck to really taste amazing, top sushi my first time. So immediately I was like, Wow! I was amazed.
“After that when I came back to the Czech Republic I was all about sushi. I needed to learn how to make it, I wanted to eat it.
“And in those days there were not really a big sushi culture here, and definitely not that many good places to eat sushi.
“After that whenever I had it I thought, That’s OK, but it’s not that amazing stuff that I had in London. So that was how my obsession started.”
How did your business start?
“Well, I always loved the service industry in general. During my studies I did some part time jobs – as a waitress, as an air hostess, I even worked as a chef for a while, and I ran a restaurant.
“After I finished my studies, I realised this is what I like to do. I preferred it to the subject that I actually studied.
“I always felt like I wanted to start my own business, to be creative and to do everything for myself.
“And because I had worked in so many restaurants I immediately knew I didn’t want to have a restaurant. Because maybe you own a business, but you definitely don’t have the freedom that I wanted.
“So I thought I should start some catering firm. I thought, What is the best food in the world? That’s easy – it’s sushi!
“That’s how I decided to make sushi. I was completely naïve. I had no know-how. No money. But that’s how the idea happened.
And is it the case that you met a Japanese sushi master living here in Prague?
“Yes, that was amazing, that was one of the luckiest moments of my life… I was so enthusiastic and I told everyone that I wanted to start a sushi business.
“My friend, who is actually an expat, an American girl who’s been living here 20 years, she told me, I met this Japanese guy in a bar and he told me he makes sushi – so I took his contact for you.
“So it turned out it was Yuki, this amazing Japanese sushi chef and sushi master. Basically we immediately, as you say, hit it off. We were really friends from first sight.
“He’s an amazing person and he’s one of the reasons the building is still there, because we had some hard times.
“And he never made me feel inferior for not being Japanese, and being a woman, which is an issue…”
Do you mean, in the world of sushi?
“In Japan. In the world of sushi there are a lot of women now who make sushi, but especially from Japanese people there is prejudice sometimes. Or people would expect it – I never really experienced it.
“I was kind of scared to call him and tell him, Look, I’m this 23-year-old girl and I want to make sushi – will you teach me?
“That took some courage. But luckily Yuki is great and we’ve been together nine years making sushi now.”
All the fish used for sushi has been frozen at some point and that’s not a bad thing. It’s not because we’re in the Czech Republic – these are just the rules.
Where do you get the fish from? Is it frozen? Is it fresh? Is there a problem if it is frozen?
“All the fish used for sushi has been frozen at some point and that’s not a bad thing. It’s not because we’re in the Czech Republic – these are just the rules.
“For instance salmon has a lot of dangerous parasites, so all the salmon that comes from farms is immediately frozen on the boat, just to get rid of these parasites.
“Also with fish like tuna that lives in the deep sea they freeze this fish on boats because it’s the only way logistically – you should basically eat the fish in three days, which would be impossible.
“But it’s not an issue. People have the prejudice that frozen fish is wrong, but the same thing happens in Japan with a lot of fish.
“The difference is in how the company handles the fish and what the techniques are. If it’s a good company that takes care of the fish, then you really don’t taste any difference.
“With some fish some experts even say that it’s better because the fact that the fish is frozen kind of breaks down the molecules in the meat and it gives it a little bit more flavour.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing at all and also you’re eating raw meat, so it’s also for safety reasons.”
“Yes, this is a big problem and not many people know about it, but the rice is actually more dangerous than the fish. Because if the fish goes off, you can immediately smell it. Even the worst chef in the world wouldn’t use fish that stinks for sushi.
“But when you cook the rice there’s a certain bacteria that produces toxins. If you leave rice for even six hours sometimes – it depends on your luck – that’s enough time to create enough toxins.
“Even if you reheat it you kill the bacteria but the toxin is still there. It remains there. But with the sushi rice the difference is that we use rice vinegar to season the rice. That happens immediately after the rice is cooked.
“In some places… especially cheaper places or places where people who don’t have information kind of mimic what other people are doing and they don’t even know what sushi really is, when they don’t use the vinegar or they don’t mix it in properly, you can get food poisoning from rice.
“There are people who have to be like three days in hospital, though not usually from sushi rice.
“In Japan a couple of people die a year. They basically forget rice in a rice cooker and if they eat it the next day. And if they’re old or ill or little children, there are always a couple of cases.”
Fast food sushi is a weakness in Prague. I could easily recommend five or six sushi restaurants, but I can’t really recommend one fast food sushi place that would be good.
When you started there weren’t many places in Prague selling sushi but now it’s quite common. Do you welcome that boom?
“Yes. I absolutely love it. It’s great. There are so many good sushi restaurants now.
“I think it’s better for everybody, because we have easier access to ingredients. We have more different kinds of fish that can be delivered here – because if just one company buys it, nobody’s going to bring it here. I’m always happy to see that people are doing justice to sushi…
“[But] I think that fast food sushi is a weakness in Prague. I could easily recommend five or six sushi restaurants, but I can’t really recommend one fast food sushi place that would be good. I think we haven’t learned how to do good cheap sushi – it doesn’t have to be bad quality.”
Generally speaking, why is sushi so expensive?
“There are a lot of reasons. But the main reason is definitely the work, because sushi depends very much on the chef and if you want a good sushi chef you have to pay them. That’s how it is.
“Even with the same ingredients a good chef will do not twice as good a job but maybe 10 times as good a job as another chef.
“Another reason is you’re just using the best part of the meat. You throw out a lot of stuff. With restaurants especially you always have the danger that if you don’t use the fish the same day you have to throw it out. So sometimes they have to… overprice a little bit just to cover this risk.”
Is there an element in your work when you cater at companies or at people’s homes that you’re putting on a show?
“Oh yeah [laughs]. We usually make the sushi right there on the spot in front of people, because they like to see it and also, with the sushi, the fresher the better.
“It doesn’t have to be that the fish is 100-percent fresh like out of the sea, but once you put the ingredients together – the fish with the rice – there are elements like the rice is a little bit warmer, the fish is colder, and all this plays a role in how the sushi tastes in the end.
“Sometimes we do workshops where people can make their own sushi, or we do – which is very popular now because sometimes people are tired and don’t want to cook, but they also don’t want to just eat – events where we talk about all the different kinds of sushi.
“While we talk about this we always give them examples. I explain what sushi nigiri is and we serve sushi nigiri. I explain what maki is and so on.
“Our goal is that when a person leaves this party they know how to find good sushi and they are experts. They can go to any sushi bar in the world and they know to look for, what to avoid.
“These parties are popular because people like to educate themselves now.”
