Schlosser’s race and his standing with the Japanese consulate and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC), along with recent acts of violence directed at AAPI communities and the long history of Asian discrimination in the U.S., further complicated the dialogue around his Instagram post.
Members of the Japanese-American community shared with Eater LA that they found Schlosser’s caption untrue and hurtful because it simultaneously erased countless cooks’ and chefs’ efforts while also blaming them for not upholding Schlosser’s perception of the cuisine and its authenticity markers. Some claimed Schlosser appropriated Japanese culture and failed to acknowledge Los Angeles’s Japanese restaurants and confectionaries, like Fugetsu-Do in Little Tokyo and Sakura-ya in Gardena, which have produced and sold sakura mochi for generations. Though the post received nearly 1,000 likes and some positive feedback, it quickly garnered dozens of critical comments from people who were taken aback by Schlosser’s generalizations and sense of ownership over Japanese cuisine. This important Japanese classic is a rare sight in LA.”) Makes my life harder,” while the current caption reads: “Sakura mochi, the most iconic dessert in Japan. It’s because these Japanese restaurants don’t understand, appreciate, or care about promoting what Japanese cuisine is all about.” (A revised version of the caption eliminated the phrase, “So sad. Yet no Japanese restaurants are featuring it? So sad. The post, which was also shared to Shibumi’s Facebook page but has since been deleted on that site, featured an image of sakura mochi with the caption: “Sakura mochi, the most iconic dessert in Japan. It also raised questions about the implications of a non-Japanese chef who built his career on Japanese food - and was recently named a Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador - publicly disparaging Japanese restaurants to promote his own business. The Michelin-starred restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, best known for chef and co-owner David Schlosser’s adherence to traditional Japanese cookery, shared a post intended to advertise its sakura mochi dessert special but instead ignited a conversation around colonization, cuisine ownership, and authenticity. A post on Shibumi’s Instagram account on Thursday, April 15 sparked a wave of criticism from members of Los Angeles’s Japanese-American community.
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