Review of 'Nobu': less about Sushi's teacher, more about a sexy global brand

“Nobu” takes a little more than an hour to marinate enough to approach a complexity point, not exactly bitter, but it is no longer lazy. Nobu Matsuhisa, Sushi's famous teacher, is running quality control controls in one of his restaurants. A poor chef is sweating both the test that will not need soy sauce soon enough. Your dish is still sent back: cut the finest scallions. Why is this smaller crude oil? Why did you paint a line salt instead of a point? The scene continues, unbearably. A few minutes later, Robert De Niro, a first investor and co -founder, dominates a private meeting meeting with concerns about the growth too raptor. It is not exactly the ominal Waingro's clashes of “Heat” but in the stadium.

The annoyance, the precision and a kind of reputational exclusivity are in the heart of the Matsuhisa company. These are difficult things to make a documentary. But it is also the reason why Nobu needed to come to Beverly Hills so that his concept is rooted, not any angels, but the Boomtown of Power Lunches of the 80s and the expenses of expenses of expenses. Wolfgang Puck from Spago makes an appearance in the intermediate film of director Matt Tyrnauer, adulterating his lifelong friend sitting next to his side but without articulating the essence of his revolution: the high -end brand. You want more time to spend this conceptual idea, enabled by celebrities who throw money into food they barely ate.

The type of doctor that “Nobu” resembles more to it (like most profiles aimed at gastronomy) is a soft chronology of a humble genius and a daily type that flies to fly private. Matsuhisa leans for euphoric local fishmakers, hugs and selfies with their staff, visit their roots in Japan and Peru. There are family interviews and a detour to Alaska, where, years before he had a night waiting list of 300 people, an early restaurant of his fired fire, in the literal way (Tyrnauer cuts the head of the Anchorage newspaper). These false beginnings are somehow exhausting, lacking suspense. He contemplated suicide, then came to California.

The food navigates by: Black cod wedges with miso, delicate fish plates in fine slices adorned with herbs manipulated with tweezers. Everything is crazy and delicious. Even so, apart from the former food editor of Los Angeles Times, Ruth Reichl, who witnessed Nobu's emergence as happened, there are few voices in the camera who speak directly with Matsuhisa's gifts and experimentation with the form. “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” of 2011 does a better job by delivering the intimate discipline of cutting and forming. More testimony of the experience of eating in Nobu would have helped this feel less like a commercial.

“Nobu” is a strangely carefree movie with the community experience of food. We listen to the way in which their Sushi work stations are high (a “stage”, Matsuhisa calls them) and that is essential for the performance that occurs here, also the elimination. Something clicks when the movie is going to Nobu Malibu and visits the table of the Supermodel Cindy Crawford, whose “Cindy Rice”, a dish that he invented, adorns the menu. There is a deep mutual gratitude between them that dates back to years. An appreciation of the finest things? No doubt. Game recognition game? Definitely.