Your Sushi: Nationwide sushi classes with a Bristol base

I had the perfect weekend recently. After spending the Saturday out in the Herefordshire countryside, learning to make cider with the Bristol Cider Shop, the first half of my Sunday was spent at the Park Street Cafe at a three hour sushi masterclass hosted by Your Sushi…

Originally set up in Bristol, Your Sushi now host classes not only here, but all over the country. Perhaps unexpectedly, the man behind it all is French, rather than Japanese. Unimpressed with the quality of the sushi served in many restaurants (and not forgetting his particular aversion to supermarket sushi!), Emmanuel Letellier set up Your Sushi to show people how easy it is to make sushi of a decent quality at home.

The three hour class saw a group of fellow sushi-lovers and I taking our places at two long tables at the Park Street Cafe, each of us donning a Your Sushi-branded apron before Manu and Kiyoko began the class.

First of all, Kiyoko and Manu demonstrated how to make the perfect sushi rice: the vital element that a number of us had struggled with in the past when attempting to make our own sushi at home. The quantity of rice to seasoning, the amount of water to cook the rice in plus fanning it to cool it down are all equally important – it may seem like a lot of effort, but nobody wants chewy or sloppy sushi!

Having been given a tub of rice, chopped our vegetables into strips and being provided with sushi-grade fish, we moved on to learning to make various types of sushi roll…beginning with hosomaki, the thin rolls that generally have only one filling.

We were shown where to place the rice on the nori (seaweed) sheet, how much rice to include, and the art of rolling – which can be tricky at first, but Kiyoko’s expert guidance ensured that we all produced fairly professional-looking sushi by our second attempt!

The ‘easy’ rolls completed, we moved onto futomaki, fatter rolls combining a variety of fillings. We were encouraged to stack the fillings in such a way that there would be a great contrast in colours when the roll was complete…

…and I don’t think mine looked too bad!

Over the course of the session, we also learned how to make hand rolls, nigiri (balls of rice topped with raw fish) and gunkan (balls of rice surrounded by a nori wrapper and filled with a choice of topping). With more than enough rice and fillings to use up, we all ate a fair amount there and then – and filled up boxes with our remaining creations to take home, accompanied by wasabi and pickled ginger.

We all came away from the course confident in our ability to recreate the session at home – it may be time-consuming, but sushi is a great way to impress dinner guests! At £125 per person, the sushi masterclass isn’t cheap, but you can get £25 off the cost if you quote Bristol Bites when booking. Click here to find out dates of the upcoming Bristol classes.

Many thanks to Manu and Kiyoko for a fun and informative session – I’ll send you some photos when I next make my own!

Find Your Sushi on the Bristol Bites Directory…

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