Sushi school: Southside shop teaches Japanese cooking essentials

The knife slid through the sticky rice, seaweed wrap, imitation crab, avocado and cucumber, cutting cleanly despite the novice hand guiding it.

With a flip of the blade, the first two pieces of California roll were guided onto a platter.

I was now a sushi chef.

Not really, but under the guidance of Mori Wilhite, owner of Katsumi’s Teaching Kitchen, the foundation of skills needed to be a sushi snob had at least started to form.

“I want to raise the standard, so that when you go, you’re at least asking questions about the sushi you’re getting,” she said. “When you have your sushi party at your house, I expect you to be totally unbearable and condescending.”

From her Beech Grove business, Wilhite has made introducing people to authentic Japanese cooking her passion. Visitors can learn to make ramen noodles and pot stickers, street food such as okonomiyaki, takoyaki and yakisoba, and of course, sushi. A pairing course helps people figure out the best Japanese beers to match with food.

For kids, Wilhite helps them craft cute bento boxes with fresh ingredients. Over winter break, she offers an anime and manga class for teens that revolves around food, history, etiquette and other aspects of Japanese tradition.

All of it is a vehicle to passing on the cooking and the culture that she loves.

“My motto is, I set a Japanese standard for non-Asian people,” she said.

Wilhite, who is half Japanese, sharpened her acuity around the kitchen cooking with her mother and grandmother. Growing up in San Diego, California, she would help cut vegetables, grind sesame seeds and fold pot sticker skins.

The lessons she learned in the kitchen have stuck with her for the rest of her life — particularly the high standards she has for cooking.

“My mom was Japanese, and she was a food snob elitist. Just by being her child, I picked stuff up,” Wilhite said.

After serving in the U.S. Army and earning a degree in Japanese language, she moved to Indiana. Upon arriving, Wilhite was appalled at the lack of authentic Japanese culture she found around Indianapolis.

The desire to teach people about the food she loved led to the formation of Katsumi’s Teaching Kitchen in 2015.

“It is different from the Japanese restaurants here, but you have the satisfaction knowing you can make a much better sushi than the restaurants,” she said.

The business was an outlet for Wilhite while she was caring for her mother, who was struggling with Alzheimer’s disease, and for her son, who is on the autism spectrum and is non-verbal.

As word of mouth slowly spread, Katsumi’s Teaching Kitchen has gained more and more followers. She has been featured in local newspapers, television shows and radio programs and podcasts. She was featured in Indy Comic Con over the summer, tying Japanese food to pop culture.

Earlier this year, HGTV came to Indiana to film part of her class for their “Urban Oasis” program.

In 2020, Wilhite moved to the downtown Beech Grove storefront where she currently welcomes students of all kinds.

During the sushi-making class, Wilhite taught how to make California rolls with wasabi and yum-yum sauce, or spicy mayo. She showed how to cook the sticky rice, slice cucumbers, avocado and imitation crab, then arrange it and roll it in nori, or seaweed wraps, foundational to sushi making.

Wilhite was emphatic about the ingredients she used, showing the authentic products such as the Tamaki Gold short grain rice and the Kewpie mayonnaise needed to make the spicy sauce.

“In the class, it shouldn’t be something that someone could have found on YouTube. I go out of my way to make sure you have the cultural perspective,” Wilhite said. “The sushi class in particular, since it’s very froufrou and posh, I train you how to be a proper sushi snob so that when you go there, you’re asking, ‘What kind of rice is this?’”

The class also included instruction on how to make a sponge cake in a rice cooker, complete with a matcha-white chocolate glaze, as well as miso soup.

Other classes include the ramen noodle set, making ramen noodle broth, egg toppings, cha shu pork, potstickers as a side dish and the rice cooker cake. In a special pairing course, Wilhite teaches people to make yakisoba noodles, fresh spring rolls and California rolls, then pair it with three Japanese brands of beer.

The anime boot camp for children is a new addition to Wilhite’s offerings.

“The cooking classes have been good, but it is a service oriented business, so we’re busy nine months out of the year,” she said. “I’m half-Japanese, but I don’t hang out with 12 year olds, so I didn’t know anime was a big thing. I got creative and thought I’d create an industry off of anime.”

Over winter break, she’ll open up the teaching kitchen for a series of classes. Kids learn about pop culture such as anime and manga, weaving cooking, tradition and etiquette into it.

Wilhite implements language into the class as well — students typically are able to speak about 60 Japanese words after finishing the course.

“I figured, I’m a cooking school, I could do more cultural stuff. And the more you learn about Japanese culture, the more anime and manga will make sense,” Wilhite said.