TONNY SOESANTO:
The king of sushi In 1983 Tonny Soesanto’s career appeared to be on track. He had earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from Berkeley and his M.S., also in ChemE, from Caltech. He was working in Silicon Valley for National Semiconductor, where he was part of a very large scale integration (VLSI) team that had just developed a 64-kilobyte static random access memory chip. Says Soesanto, “Today, 64 kilobytes doesn’t sound like much, but it was considered a breakthrough then. To celebrate, the company threw a big steak and lobster party for us.” Soesanto was 25 at the time. A year later, he walked away from Silicon Valley to spend his next 30 years working hard to create an Asian food empire built around the delivery and in-store production of fresh sushi. “My parents were entrepreneurs, and it must have been in my blood,” explains Soesanto. His family immigrated to Indonesia from China right after World War II and settled in the town of Malang, in eastern Java. At 1,500 feet above sea level, the small city’s relatively cool climate made it a popular respite from the heat of nearby Surabaya, Java’s second largest city. In Malang the family ran a shoe store. Soesanto, the youngest of eight children, was born in 1957 and grew up helping his mother in their shop. His upbringing shaped his culinary perspective just as it did his enterpreneurial spirit. Indonesia, like Malaysia and Singapore, is a country with a multicultural cuisine based on Malay, Chinese and Indian influences. In addition, Soesanto’s hometown of Malang is renowned for the quality of its tempeh, a cultured soybean cake that has its origins in Indonesia. But Soesanto’s primary culinary influence was the Hakka food his mother prepared at home. The Hakka, sometimes known as the “gypsies of China,” are a unique ethnic group that originated in northern China and migrated further and further south to avoid political turmoil during the centuries of dynastic rule. The Hakka strive to maintain their unique cultural identity, including their cuisine, which incorporates the regional influences of the areas of China they journeyed through during their long migration. Says Soesanto, “My dad passed away years ago, but my mom is 89 now and lives in Surabaya, with one of my older sisters. I visited her last summer, and she is still a great cook.” Education is highly valued among Hakka families, and Soesanto’s was no exception. After completing high school in Malang, he left Indonesia behind. At age 19, he traveled to California to study at Cal State Northridge. “I stayed at Cal State for a year and a half and transferred to Berkeley for my ChemE degree at the start of winter quarter in 1979. I was taking 17 units, and my adviser David Lyon told me to slow down. But it was very expensive for a foreign student, so I
12
College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley
Tonny Soesanto (seated), the founder of Kikka Sushi, eyes the feast prepared by his long-time sushi chef, Matsuo Okihara. Okihara is from the coastal city of Osaka, Japan, one of world’s great food cities.