Katsuya founder and sushi master Katsuya Uechi dies at 67

Katsuya Uechi, the master sushi chef behind Los Angeles' Katsuya restaurants, died at 67, and the group that bears his name said no cause was given. Funeral services were pending Friday. For the cooks, servers and managers who built their careers around the Katsuya name, the immediate issue is continuity at a brand that grew from one Studio City dining room into a network of restaurants and delivery outlets across Los Angeles.

Uechi was born in Okinawa, Japan, and moved to the United States in 1984. He opened the first Sushi Katsu-ya on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City in 1997, setting the foundation for a restaurant group that later spread to Brentwood, Century City, Hollywood and L.A. Live downtown. He is widely credited with helping redefine Japanese dining in Los Angeles by blending traditional sushi technique with California flavors, and his signature spicy tuna crispy rice became one of the chain’s best-known dishes.

That single dish helped turn Katsuya from a neighborhood sushi spot into a regional brand with a recognizable house style, one that had to be reproduced by kitchen teams and front-of-house staff across multiple locations. The Katsu-ya Group said its signature dishes are now celebrated worldwide, and said Uechi "helped shape the Los Angeles sushi landscape and beyond." The group added that it would carry forward "the vision he spent a lifetime perfecting."

In March 2026, Japan’s Consulate-General in Los Angeles highlighted Uechi’s role in spreading Japanese cuisine and said he had been appointed a Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador. The consulate said the Katsu-ya Group operated 11 locations, including nine Japanese restaurants and two delivery outlets. That scale made Uechi more than a chef with a popular menu item; it made him the center of a workplace pipeline that linked training, consistency and brand identity across a broad restaurant footprint.

For a company built on repetition, from sushi rice to service standards, Uechi’s death leaves the next generation of operators with the job of preserving what he created without the person who defined it.