Japan’s global “sushi police”
DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP The latest from the Financial Times‘ Tokyo bureau: Alarmed at the ballooning number of restaurants that purport to be Japanese, the government has decided to take action. The agriculture ministry is to start certifying “authentic” Japanese restaurants overseas, possibly as early as this year. “The Japanese food boom is a great thing, but ...
DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP
The latest from the Financial Times‘ Tokyo bureau:
Alarmed at the ballooning number of restaurants that purport to be Japanese, the government has decided to take action. The agriculture ministry is to start certifying “authentic” Japanese restaurants overseas, possibly as early as this year.
“The Japanese food boom is a great thing, but what you find in many restaurants is not authentic Japanese food,” says one agriculture ministry official. “We want people to know what proper Japanese food tastes like, so its fans will increase.”
Related stories from the FP archives:
- How Sushi Went Global, by Theodore C. Bestor
- Japan’s Gross National Cool, by Douglas McGray
More from Foreign Policy


At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment
Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.


How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China
As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.


What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal
Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.


Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust
Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.