Page 15 - Award Winning Feature Docs

PEOPLE & CULTURE
chef and the daruma, the

Chef Hidekazu Tojo is a legend. In Vancouver, where he has lived for over fifty
years now, helming his iconic Tojo’s Restaurant. In his birthplace of Japan, where
he is, curiously, known as “Our Canadian Chef”. And on a global scale, as one of
a small handful of people who lay claim to having invented the California Roll.
Anthony Bourdain’s book “World Travel: An Irreverent Guide” describes Tojo’s
culinary creations as the “gateway drug” that made sushi hip, palatable, and
massively popular in North America. No small feat, considering that when a

19-year old Tojo arrived in Canada in
the early 1970’s, sushi (and by extension, those who make and eat it) was most Definition Episodes
1
HD
often seen as unsanitary, bizarre, and downright disgusting. How much did Tojo Producer YOP
change about himself and his food to fit in with his new community? Wallop Film 2024

The film chronicles the hardships he has faced, how far he has come, and follows
his still-ongoing journey in search of identity as he journeys from BC back to his
origins in...