There is a common belief in the U.S. that life was better in the 1950s. One factor casts serious doubt upon this opinion, though: the scarcity of sushi at that time. It is difficult to picture the Cleavers sitting down to a huge platter of assorted pieces of raw seafood delicately couched in medallions of vinegared white rice, all held together by a wisp of seaweed. In fact, this situation probably would have evoked the Beav’s eloquent, monosyllabic catchall, "Gee!".

The American palate in the last several decades has (thankfully) broken with the "meat and potatoes" prescription, craving diversity and newness instead. Lexingtonians are no exception. The proliferation of ethnic restaurants in town illustrates the interest in the far-flung tastes of India, Thailand and Japan. Sushi bars – restaurants in which sushi is their main sustenance – are the most recent additions to this trend. These restaurants single-handedly are affecting a revaluation of sushi. What was before considered an expensive, rarely-requested oddity (or perhaps a useful way to impress a date by illustrating your fortitude), now is attaining widespread appreciation for its titillating flavor and beautiful presentation.

Sushi first appeared in prehistoric Southeast Asia where fish was preserved by being mashed between large slabs of salt and surrounded by rice which, after fermenting for several months, pickled the fish. Nare-zushi was the earliest form of sushi made with this pickled fish. This pickling method and rice cultivation also appeared in Japan during this time. Nare-zushi was wasteful for the Japanese, though, since the fermented rice – a precious foodstuff in Japan – was discarded altogether and pickling could take anywhere from two months to over a year. Matsumoto Yosiichi, a 17th-century doctor in Edo, solved these problems by adding vinegar to sushi rice, allowing fish and rice to be eaten together and substantially decreasing preparation time. And finally, in 1824, Hanaya Yohei invented nigirizushi – the current vogue in the U.S. – by serving ultra-fresh, raw seafood on small fingers of vinegared rice. Yohei’s style of sushi became quite popular throughout Japan.

Until recently, though, sushi’s costliness discouraged most Americans from enjoying it. Now, however, sushi bars are bringing a new affordability to nigirizushi. Yukio and Masako Sekikawa, the husband and wife proprietors of Seki restaurant in Lexington, say that efficiency always has been a prime consideration to keep costs down for themselves and for their customers. In fact, one major reason for Seki’s existence, according to Masako, is to allow a greater number of people to eat sushi without worrying about paying through the nose for an empty stomach.

The Sekikawa’s venture began early in 1996 when Masako and her husband "just happened to look at the newspaper and in a little, tiny corner, it said ‘Carry-out Place [For Sale]’." They bought the location soon after and Yukio performed the necessary renovations on the inside, such as installing the sushi bar. Seki restaurant opened for business that June.

Yukio is no newcomer to the restaurant business. He began learning to cook at the Hakone resort in Tokyo, famous for its hot springs and pine-clad mountains. Masako (translating for Yukio) says, "When [Yukio] was 16, he worked with a chef in Tokyo where, for two years he sliced cabbage, peeled potatoes and did a lot of cleaning. After that he started learning to cut the fish [for sushi]." According to Yukio, sushi schools didn’t exist at the time, so he had to progress gradually from one position to another, until he could apprentice himself to the master chef at Hakone. Yukio learned each step in the creation of sushi during his five-year apprenticeship and stayed another five years to become a fully-certified gourmet chef, able to prepare all types of Japanese cuisine, not just sushi. In fact, all the pictures of food hanging on the walls at Seki are of dishes prepared by Yukio. The next several, turbulent years of Yukio’s life took him to Paris, France to study cooking for six months, searching for work in England, returning to Japan for a short while, then moving to San Francisco, then Palm Springs and then Santa Barbara. Yukio decided to move east after a friend in San Francisco told him that sushi was coming into vogue on the East Coast as well. He eventually settled in Lexington and met and married Masako. Before Seki’s incorporation, Yukio had worked as a chef in various Japanese restaurants and had operated a lunchbox (bento) delivery service for clients in Georgetown and Berea who desired authentic Japanese cuisine. But the lunchbox service was hard, Masako says, "because we had to deliver to Georgetown and Berea and so many different places. So we decided to start a restaurant [in Lexington instead]."Broadmindedness tempered with concern for their customers is largely what has made Seki such a success. The Sekikawas decided to operate a small, super-efficient restaurant rather than a lavish one that would drive prices skyward. The approach doesn’t detract from the dining experience; in fact when it comes to the bottom line (a.k.a. the bill) this philosophy is quite welcome. To cut costs, Seki employs a very small staff – Yukio, Masako, an apprentice chef, a dishwasher and two waitresses. Seki also uses the concept of "self-service" to reduce costs: all customers serve their own beverages, beer or soft drinks from an open cooler or hot green tea from a kettle and a free appetizer of boiled, lightly salted soy beans and miso soup is available to all customers. And while larger restaurants have to charge high prices to cover their operating costs, Seki’s small size makes operating costs negligible.