What Makes a Michelin Star Sushi Restaurant?

Our guest is Cheng Lin who is the chef/owner of Shota Omakase in Brooklyn, New York. After nearly three decades of studying and serving sushi at notable restaurants in New York City, including Sushi Seki, Blue Ribbon, and ITO Tribeca, he opened his Omakase-only sushi restaurant Shota Omakase in August 2023 and earned his first Michelin star within a year. In this episode, we will discuss how Cheng got into sushi, an inspiring book that steered his career as a sushi chef, how he finds unique ingredients from Japan, such as seven-year-old vinegar and a rare sushi rice, the advantage of being non-Japanese as a sushi chef, how to eat confidently at an Omakase sushi bar and much, much more!!! See Privacy Policy at and California Privacy Notice at .

You can listen to What Makes a Michelin Star Sushi Restaurant? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

What Makes a Michelin Star Sushi Restaurant? is an episode from Japan Eats by Heritage Radio Network.

This episode is 00:35:51 long.

This episode was published on Nov 6, 2025.

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