Tatsuya and Hiroko Sekiguchi sat in silence as they made the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Dallas to Houston last November. They didn’t eat, or talk. Anxiety, heavy and palpable, hung in the air between them.
Just three years prior, the Sekiguchis packed up their lives in New York City to try their luck at opening a restaurant in Dallas. They didn’t know if the high-end edomae sushi chef Tatsu dedicated his career to would resonate in a city smitten with beef. In May 2022, they opened Tatsu Dallas, a 10-seat omakase restaurant on the outskirts of Deep Ellum, and hoped for the best.
Now, as they nervously cruised south on I-45, they found themselves waiting to be measured by the most consequential restaurant rating system in the world. With an invitation to the inaugural awards ceremony for the Michelin Guide Texas in hand, they stood, knowingly, on the precipice of irrevocable change.
On a stage in a Houston ballroom, Michelin announcers slowly and alphabetically listed the Texas restaurants awarded stars. In the audience, Hiroko, with her brows furrowed, clutched her hands under her chin. Tatsu held up his phone to record, just in case.
Eat Drink D-FW
Hiroko Sekiguchi (center) waits with anticipation next to her husband chef Tatsuya Sekiguchi of Tatsu Dallas as announcers list the Texas restaurants winning Michelin stars during the 2024 Michelin Guide Texas ceremony in Houston.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“I’m honored to announce one Michelin star to … ” Gwendal Poullennec, international director of Michelin Guide, said, pausing for dramatic effect, “ … Tatsu Dallas.”
Hiroko shook and cried. Tatsu, grinning wide, picked his cream-colored cowboy hat up off his lap and placed it on his head. Arm in arm, the couple walked to the stage to accept the award that had consumed every inch of their headspace over the months leading up to that moment. They were flooded with relief, but also with disbelief and the realization the life they built in Dallas would never be the same.
Related
“Everyone thought we would get it, but we didn’t believe we would,” said Tatsu last Thursday during his weekly drive to pick up fresh fish flown from Japan to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Having spent years making names for themselves in New York’s stiffly competitive and Michelin star-heavy restaurant scene, the Sekiguchis knew exactly what receiving a star would mean for their business and their personal lives.
The Sekiguchis said they were in shock when Tatsu Dallas was named a Michelin star winner in 2024. It was the only restaurant in North Texas to receive a star.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“We were freed from the chains of anxiety [when we left New York],” Tatsu said, “but that’s all come back.”
In the year since Tatsu Dallas became the first — and currently only — North Texas restaurant to receive a star, Michelin has loomed like a shadow in the background of daily life for Tatsu and Hiroko, who oversees front-of-house operations for the restaurant. The pressure to perform at the highest level is ever-present.
Michelin stars must be re-earned every year, and restaurateurs never know when anonymous Michelin inspectors are visiting. Anyone on any given night could be an inspector covertly deciding if Tatsu Dallas is one of the best restaurants in the world.
As the 2025 Michelin Guide Texas ceremony on Tuesday nears, Tatsu and Hiroko are just as nervous, if not more so, than they were last year.
Tatsu and Hiroko talk about their nervousness over the upcoming Michelin awards ceremony while driving to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to pick up a shipment of fresh fish from Japan.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“It is harder now because now we have to maintain it,” Tatsu said. “Last year I was thinking, ‘What if I go home empty-handed?’ And this year, it is, ‘What if we lose that star?’”
‘I didn’t want to do this job’
Considering how Tatsu’s relationship with sushi began, it’s surprising he became a sushi chef at all, let alone one over a Michelin-starred restaurant. He was born into a family of chefs in Hasuda City, Saitama, Japan, and was raised in the same building where his family ran a sushi restaurant. Sushi infiltrated every part of his life, and he grew up with no interest in making it, he said, or even eating it.
Tatsu’s great grandmother, Fukuyuja, opened her eponymous sushi restaurant in the 1880s and the business stayed in the family, eventually landing in his father’s care. Rather than go into the family trade, Tatsu wanted to chart his own path, one that had nothing to do with the restaurant industry. He coached handball and planned to be a high school social studies teacher instead.
“I didn’t want to do this job,” he said. “It was boring to me.”
Tatsu was 24 years old and working to secure his teaching certificate when his life tragically and instantaneously changed course.
His older brother, who was positioned to take over the family restaurant, died suddenly in his sleep at 27 years old. Tatsu, knowing little about sushi aside from the fact that he didn’t much care for it, volunteered to take his brother’s place at the restaurant.
In time, Tatsu said, he came to love sushi and its methodical preparation. Within six years of joining his family’s business, he accepted a job at Yama in New York City. To his father’s dismay, he never looked back. His father, now in his 80s, closed the restaurant last year.
Tatsu makes a weekly drive to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to pick up cases of fresh fish overnighted from Japan. He works with local distributors to have fresh fish delivered to him other days of the week.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
Tatsu went on to spend nearly a decade at Michelin-starred Sushi Yasuda in Manhattan where famed chef Naomichi Yasuda appointed him as executive chef. He then became the executive chef of Omakase Room, also in Manhattan. It was there that he met Hiroko, a longtime hospitality professional and native of Queens, N.Y., who applied for the open service manager position he was looking to fill.
The two went on to marry. They dreamed of leaving New York to open a restaurant together somewhere less saturated with omakase restaurants. Maybe Massachusetts, Florida or California, they thought.
“I wanted to move to a different state to challenge myself,” Tatsu said.
In the spring of 2019, they realized 30% of the phone numbers in their reservations system at Omakase Room had Texas area codes. Texas, it seemed, had an appetite for sushi.
Tatsu studied the state’s major cities to determine if one of them would be a good fit for their restaurant. The Dallas area, he learned, is home to many Japanese companies. It also has the only Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese supermarket, in Texas. He was sold.
Chef Tatsu cleans a whole flounder after picking up cases of fresh fish flown in from Japan.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
The Sekiguchis decided to visit Dallas in October 2019. As they prepared for their trip, Tatsu serendipitously received an email from a man who had long been a fan of his sushi, Matthew Ciccone. Ciccone, who splits his time between New York and Dallas, asked if Tatsu knew of a chef who might be interested in opening a sushi restaurant with him in Dallas. Tatsu and Hiroko couldn’t believe the timing. They raised their hands and scheduled a meeting with Ciccone during their trip to Dallas.
On their flight back to New York, they made the decision to relocate to Dallas and open a restaurant with Ciccone.
There was not a hint of risk or doubt in going into business with Tatsu, Ciccone said.
“Tatsu’s reputation in New York was exceptional,” Ciccone said. “I wonder why he was willing to work with someone like me who had no experience and who he barely knew. I think the bigger risk we both took was whether Dallas had the palate for this type of sushi.”
By December 2020, Tatsu, Hiroko and their cat, Allen, were driving cross-country to set up a new life in Dallas, trusting the city did have the palate for the food they had to offer. When Tatsu Dallas opened in May 2022, the positive reception was swift and sustained.
Despite their restaurant being consistently busy, the Sekiguchis enjoyed a less hectic life in Dallas, until Michelin came.
“We were shocked because we left that in New York and we were freed from it,” Hiroko said. “Then it came here.”
Life amongst the stars
Since last year’s Michelin awards ceremony, the Sekiguchis have had to adjust to the attention and expectations that come with having the only restaurant to hold a Michelin star in a region that’s home to more than 8 million people.
“In New York, having a star wasn’t a big deal,” Hiroko said. “It meant you could fill the seats in your restaurant. But here it means more eyes on you, and more pressure.”
Hiroko said she and Tatsu never thought about Michelin before last year’s ceremony, but now it is on their minds daily. They think about it when they pick up fish from the airport instead of waiting for a distributor, so it is as fresh as possible. They think about it as they review upcoming reservations and look for ways to make guests feel welcomed and comfortable. They think about it each time a diner sits in front of Tatsu’s counter and stoically scribbles on a notepad throughout their meal, pretending to be an inspector or something akin to one.
Chef Tatsuya Sekiguchi removes bones from cuts of fish as he prepares for service.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
Tatsu’s favorite time of day, he said, is in the morning when he’s alone in the restaurant’s kitchen and the pressure of it all feels muted. There, in the quiet calm, he can clear his mind and ready himself for the service ahead.
Each day, Tatsu spends hours organizing the station where he prepares sushi and sashimi in front of diners, fileting whole fish with expert precision and changing the wraps used to wick moisture from cuts of fish like striped marlin, yellowtail and grouper. Alongside his sous chef, Yoji Ishii, Tatsu does his daily prep quietly and systematically with nice, gentle music playing in the background.
“No, really,” Hiroko said, laughing. “He types ‘nice music’ into the search bar when he puts on music in the morning.”
Tatsu’s kitchen is as one would expect from a chef running a Michelin-starred omakase sushi restaurant — small, spotless and orderly. The same can’t be said for his space at home, Hiroko said.
“He’s a slob at home,” she said, tossing him a smile, “but that’s why this works.”
Tatsu and Hiroko said they haven’t changed anything about their restaurant now that Michelin inspectors have a watchful eye on them. The small changes they made at Tatsu Dallas in the past year would have happened anyway, they said, like Tatsu blending three types of rice instead of two for better texture, and the tasting menu price increasing from $185 to $195 per person due to inflation.
Tatsu Dallas sous chef Yoji Ishii filets a fish alongside head chef Tatsu to prepare for the dinner service ahead.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“We never work with the intention of earning a star,” Tatsu said. “Our goal has always been to create sushi and dining experiences that stay in people’s memories. If Michelin recognized that, then we’re truly grateful.”
The Michelin star came with a complicated duality — somehow nothing and everything has changed for Tatsu and Hiroko. Nothing about the way they run their restaurant is different, but the pressure that comes with it is.
Regardless of what happens at the 2025 ceremony on Tuesday, they plan to keep doing what they set out to do when they packed their car with their belongings and made the 3-day drive to Dallas. They just might do it with even more nerves than before.
A calendar inside Tatsu Dallas’ kitchen shows the omakase restaurant will be closed for the upcoming Michelin Awards on Oct. 28.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
“Even if we don’t consciously think about Michelin, people naturally see it as a measure of a restaurant’s quality. I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t make me anxious at times,” Tatsu said. “But there are many wonderful restaurants in the world that don’t have Michelin stars. I simply want our restaurant to remain one that lingers in people’s memories — a place they wish to return to.”
A star or not, Tatsu will drive to the airport Wednesday morning, pick up two cases of fresh fish, bring them to his quiet kitchen and get back to work.