Even when compared with the most charismatic figures who serve up magic on a plate every night in the world’s most celebrated restaurants, Masaki Saito may be one of a kind. As the first of Canada’s chefs to be accorded two Michelin stars — an honour bestowed in 2022 — this high priest of sushi omakase has helped elevate Toronto’s culinary scene to unprecedented heights.

Yet as this illuminating and wildly entertaining documentary reveals, the painstaking care and precision he brings to every item on Sushi Masaki Saito’s fabled tasting menu is hardly representative of the sometimes unruly life he lives outside his kitchen.

Eschewing the high gloss and conventional packaging of so many documentaries set in the food world, directors Jamal Burger and Jukan Tateisi bring great energy and style to a film that matches its subject’s seemingly inexhaustible brio and flair for the unpredictable.

Just as fascinating are the people who surround the chef, a coterie that includes family and friends from back home in Japan, the intrepid people who procure the components for his dishes, and the staff members who must sometimes subsume their own needs and ambitions in order to support Saito’s vision.

And as the chef’s prowess and stature grows over the course of the several very eventful years captured on camera, new ventures and developments create new pressures and expectations, all of which makes for an uncommonly captivating and vivid portrait of a culinary superstar.

JASON ANDERSON