Masaharu Morimoto flew in straight from Japan to lead a sushi-making class at his own restaurant inside Foxwoods Resort Casino on Friday, handing guests tuna, yellowtail, salmon, avocado, seaweed, cucumber and rice and walking them through the techniques he has taught for two decades. The Iron Chef star spent the class demonstrating techniques for putting the ingredients together at Momosan Foxwoods by Morimoto, the ramen-and-sushi restaurant that bears his name inside the Mashantucket casino.
Morimoto has been teaching home cooks to make sushi since he opened his now-closed Morimoto restaurant in New York back in 2006, according to CT Insider. Back then, he said, his students often produced sushi that was messy and flawed. These days, he said, people arrive with a much better grasp of the basics, something he credits to the explosion of internet tutorials. Still, he told the outlet, there is one part of the process that trips people up more than any other: the rice.
Why Rice Trips Up Even Eager Students
Per the same report, Morimoto said people often struggle with preparing sushi rice even as other parts of the process have gotten easier for home cooks. He said YouTube tutorials and supermarket-quality fish and ingredients have made the rest of sushi-making far more approachable than it once was. He also said ramen can be more challenging to teach. Morimoto said flatly that sushi itself is not difficult, calling it easy to eat and, with the right guidance, easy to make.
One attendee at Friday's class, television personality and food writer Alex P. Taylor, used the session to celebrate a birthday and called learning sushi-making directly from Morimoto amazing. Taylor, who had also visited Momosan Foxwoods for its grand opening, said some of the techniques proved harder than others but praised the chef as a great teacher. Taylor added that Morimoto's long list of accomplishments makes him an example for others in the industry.
A Restaurant Years in the Making
Momosan Foxwoods by Morimoto officially opened on June 26, 2025, after Foxwoods leadership first broached the idea of bringing the chef to Mashantucket back in 2008, with talks picking back up roughly two and a half years before the doors opened, according to CT Bites. Morimoto marked the opening with drums and sumo wrestlers at the resort. In its official grand-opening announcement, Foxwoods described the restaurant as blending casual ramen and izakaya-style dining with Morimoto's most expansive sushi program to date, and called it the seventh Momosan location in the United States. Foxwoods described the space as a 145-seat restaurant, while an earlier CT Insider report on the project had put the planned seating at 150 customers.
The Foxwoods location grew out of a single planned pop-up. CT Insider reported in early 2025 that Morimoto would visit for a one-day pop-up experience before the restaurant later opened its doors that June. The chef returned again this past June for a Tokyo Night Market pop-up, which the outlet reported was set to include culinary tastings, live entertainment, interactive art moments and a high-energy, nightlife-inspired atmosphere.
Sumo Wrestling, Then Sushi Rolling
Friday's sushi class came just a day before Morimoto attended the All Star Sumo event at Foxwoods on Saturday, which featured professional wrestlers from Japan and Mongolia. Morimoto said he is a big fan of sumo culture, a passion that has now tied directly into two of his recent Foxwoods appearances in the same week.
Morimoto is known to millions as the star of Iron Chef and Iron Chef America and now serves as executive producer and head judge for Roku's Sushi Master, per Foxwoods. Beyond Connecticut, he has restaurants in Boston, Mexico City, Disney Springs, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Napa, Montclair and Tokyo, building an empire that traces back to his first namesake restaurant, which Foxwoods says he opened in Philadelphia in 2001 before opening a second Morimoto restaurant in New York in 2006.
Eyes on a Manhattan Comeback
Morimoto shuttered that original New York restaurant in 2020, according to Eater NY, which reported that a new project called MM by Morimoto was planned for 1255 Broadway at West 31st Street in Midtown South, with an expected opening sometime in late 2025. At the Foxwoods class, Morimoto said he still plans to open a new restaurant in Manhattan and confirmed that construction is already underway on the project.
