Making $1000 Per Day as a Master Sushi Chef | Undercover Millionaire

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So have you ever wondered how a private chef is able to charge all the way up to $8,000 a night? Well today, I have you covered because I'm trying one of the most unbelievable side hustles that I have ever seen: learning the art of making sushi and taking you along from start to finish. As soon as you hit the like button and subscribe because that tells me whether or not you actually enjoy videos like this. So thank you guys so much! Let's begin now.

Hi, my name is Roman Alen Sto. I'm the executive chef of the Pepper Club here in Las Vegas. I'm a sushi master by trade, and I do private sushi events on the side. So you guys are not able to smell this, you walk in, it just smells like the sea, like it smells like ocean. We get here at 3:00 in the morning daily. Yeah, and a lot of our fish arrives from Los Angeles by truck. We have, you know, just Japanese fish. We have fresh salmon, frozen items.

Put that on, uh, it's going to ruin my hair though. I can't prepare, I got to sweat on. It's more cold in here, but a little bit better. Wow, just for reference, guys, it feels about 40° in here. This is their fish cutting room. They're breaking down a whole bluefin tuna over here, some big eye. Come check it out! They got salmon on one side; you can see right here, this is our bluefin tuna. We cut our tuna very early in the morning; very important. And then once the air oxidizes it, the flesh will be more red. It turns out more red.

What people don't realize is that you can't go by color when it comes to tuna sometimes, especially bluefin. You don't want bright red on tuna; you want like a nice deep dark color red. If it's bright red, it's probably dyed. All right, Graham, we're going to head back to the restaurant and break down all this fish. Here you go, don't drop it; they're expensive.

How do you start learning about all of this stuff? It seems so complicated to me. For me, like I'm a big fan of anime and I love Japanese culture, and for me getting into sushi was probably the closest thing to be training like a samurai. I was a big fan of that masterclass on breaking down fish. We're going to start with this first step.

Okay, first safety measure, we have to get rid of these guys. Okay, you got to get your scissors 'cause if these guys ever poke you, yeah, oh, it's over. See how I'm handling the fish? Very, very careful. These guys are very delicate. Why aren't you wearing gloves? Why are you handling this with your hands? Making sure that you feel everything; it's not spoiled fish or anything. It's fresh, so you're being able to see and feel where the scales are, all that. And that's one of the big no-nos in sushi. When you have scales on your sushi, that means you didn't clean it well enough.

Scales are going this way, so what we're going to do is we're going to push it in this direction, right? That nice and light. It's awkward for me to see this fish because I love fish and I have an aquarium, so I see this and feel like, you know, it's tough for me to want to cut the—don't catch feelings, man. Yeah, don't catch feelings. The hard part is said. I see it; it's got really cute teeth. It's just, you know, I feel bad now.

I was born in the Philippines. I was born in the Philippines; I moved to the States when I was a teenager. I wanted more. I wanted more. I don't want to go back to where my family struggled to do this or that. I want to be able to just do more for my future family and friends and show them like, hey, look, if I can do it, anybody can do it. You just have to have the work ethic; you have to have that mental strength to keep going when you don't want to keep going.

Cut through that; there's like a little, like a plate there, like a bone plate. Y push through that plate, go all the way in. This exposes that—oh my God, you see that? How I'm cutting it? Pay attention; you got to do this. Look, I mean, I'm listening; I shouldn't have eaten before this. So people need to understand how this goes, and people need to appreciate sushi more 'cause there's a lot of work that goes into it. So Graham was freaking out about the guts; it got a little squeamish, but he needs to understand that's part of the gig. You know, imagine all the work that goes into this so you'll—I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

Wow, okay, so no scales. I'm feeling around, no scales. You're going to do that one next; leave all your stuff here. Oh, I was not expecting that. It's so slimy! Get in there! Get your hands dirty! Yeah, this is a lot more difficult than I expected. Before you turn it, check here. Look, I can feel all the scales here. I can feel all the scales here. For a restaurant, for anybody serving food, have little things like that. This is basic 101 stuff; you can't do this—uh-uh, you don't belong in the industry.

All right, okay, yep, there's a plate there. Push through, get through the plate—there you go. This is what you wanted, right? Let's go! Oh my God, Graham definitely had a lot of interesting facial expressions and reactions. I just pull—oh my God, if it's detaching from the inside, pull it! Definitely, I prefer just the fish at the grocery store versus this. You ready for the next one? Yeah, sure.

Okay, first thing, you're going to dig your head in there. Grab all the stuff you threw in that should have been in the trash can, yep—the guts. Water? Oh, so this is something you wouldn't want me to do, right? Nope, and this is why I'm here. Okay, I'd screw this one up. It's just the type of fish it is; the meat's more tender; um, very, very delicate. The flavor is really light. That's why it's one of my favorites. It's great; you’d be surprised how big these guys can get—like this, Alex.

Kind of like your mom. Y'all need to understand that the rice is the most important thing in sushi, so we have to make sure that we wash it correctly, cook correctly, mixed correctly with the right vinegar. Two scoops of this; two scoops all the way to the rim. Yep, another one. All right, let's go to the front. What some people will do is they'll start crumbling it, and then you're going to start breaking the grain. You don't want to do that; all we're doing is just sifting it around so that the starch gets washed away. See that? We're going to keep doing that until this water is practically clear.

So I'm going up; it's really hot. Go ahead; dig in there. It tastes just like sushi rice already, like the perfect. Try it! How do you perfect the rice? 'Cause I've cooked rice before in the past, and it's got like, really mushy. So rice is three things, right? It's rice, water, and heat. We're going to look at all the clumps, and we're just going to break down the clumps, but you notice we're not pushing that; we're not squishing 'cause if we squeeze it, it becomes like cake.

I don't care what anybody says; rice is the most important thing in sushi. If you don't get this down right, yeah, everything else is messed up. Why are you wiping down the sides like that? Because you have to respect the rice. They're not wasteful. One thing that most sushi chefs aren't taught anymore is to respect the rice; you know, no rice on the floor, no rice on the cutting board. Sushi is beyond food; it's a lifestyle for most and especially people in Japan. And that's why I like to bring people in here that have the heart for it. If you're not good, I'm all good with that. I can make you really good, but I need the heart. Something that I can't teach you, you know? That's heart. So you have that; that's what I need.

This is better than the gym! And the one we're doing some chest day today. Chest and arms. So what's in here? We have all our fish here. We have, uh, you know, ginger, wasabi, stuff like that. Wow, okay. We have about an hour to get everything all sorted out. We got to cut some fish; we also have to, uh, make sure that the table's set—share plates, chopsticks, ramekin. I've never served anybody before in my life, so I don't know what's going to happen. I can't promise it's going to be any good.

These are some of the fishes we prepared earlier. We have our tuna, our bluefin tuna, we have our yellowtail, our salmon, and some of the seasonal fish that we got from the omakase box from earlier. It's going really well; I got this down! This is easy. This is more my speed. I could guarantee the table's going to be set correctly. I like this.

So how much does all of this cost? It's a lot of stuff. So to start with everything, with like one cutting board, part of your tools, your knife, everything—$2,000. What's the most expensive part? The most? Honestly, right now, I think is these cutting boards. These cutting boards are like 6 to 800 bucks. Your knives don't get dull on them; they don't. There's a type of material where you can literally do this all day and cut on top of it. Interesting! But your knives will stay sharp.

Naked sushi is a very popular; it's a big hit. Um, we kind of focus more on the artistic side of it. What do you mean naked sushi? Like, you mean like, like, naked sushi? Like, I try to focus more on the artistic side of things. You know, hire body painters, a makeup artist. And how much does that cost if someone wants to do like the top-notch everything? Probably $8,000. $8,000? Yeah, this is the top side of the yellowtail, the backside, and we're going to use this for our—one of our carpaccios that we're going to do for tonight. Get that nice shape that I'm looking for so that when I cut for the carpaccio, it's the same ideal shape, and it's identical the whole way.

And you can see all my slices are pretty even for the most part. Yeah, just try to get it as consistent as you can. Okay, right there. Yeah, okay, right here. So you get to use the full blade of that knife? Is that angle of the... Oh my God! You make it look so easy. It's okay; we’re not using that—no problem, we're not using that. Nope, nope, sorry, yeah, not using that. Good, okay, down, and then this, yeah, all good, we're not using that either, but it's all good; good effort.

Why? Why are we using this? Everything's edible. But remember, we're going for the quality here. I'm like, oops, I guess I have to eat it now, huh? That fillet started this wide, yeah, and this high, and as we went down towards the tail, it shrunk and got more narrow, so what you have to do is you have to adjust your knife. See how I'm adjusting now? Yeah, it's getting thinner, so my knife is—I'm tilting my knife like this to get it wider, and I'm turning my knife like this for length. So that it matches the last piece.

I got this; this is something I never would have even thought of. To me, it doesn't matter; I'm just going to eat it regardless of the shape; it tastes the same. Why? Why does this matter so much? Consistency. And remember, you're a sushi chef; you're also an artist. I'm going to go like this, yeah. Then you got your last piece. Wow, right there, okay. You got that awkward one, right? So we're going to fix it. See that? No way!

Cool! H, so it matters? So when I'm turning this, it doesn't look lopsided; it's round. It goes in a circle, you know what I mean? So no matter how awkward the pieces are, it's even here and it's even right here; it's in that center. You have to love what you do; you have to love what you do, 'cause if you don't, it's just like any other thing, and for me, it's not—it's not just that I love to cook; I love to eat. And for me, going back to what I was saying about how I love the Japanese culture and how I was able to train like a samurai underneath my old sushi chefs. And being able to handle a sword daily, it, it's a cool thing for me. Like, I'm still a little kid in that.

I'm going to teach you how to roll now, all right? 'Cause this is the fun part. This is very important. A rough side, a smooth side. So rough rice, one, two, three. W! Okay, on the r side, you start on your left side. Since you're right-handed, one hand keeps it moving forward and down, the other hand keeps it in the middle. Once you do that, you're just moving it; you're moving it around, and you're covering the seaweed flat side. It's going to go where the rice is going to have salmon right here.

Okay, it's all about proportioning. This whole line right here has to go cover everything inside, and you're going to leave yourself a tab. So ready? Going in! Smooth touch, not squeezing, nothing! Nice and smooth—one time! One more over. Now you're thinking of like a house, right? Like a, like a dice! So you got your walls, you got your ceiling, floor—one time, that's it! You fix the sides and you have a nice roll, just like that. I want to taste test that so badly!

Get in there, get in there! Are you really? Needs a little cream cheese; it's so good. This, I would say, is more my speed. But how do you not push down the rice too much where you flatten it? That comes with time! All right, one close it, one more time. Okay, okay, now form like a square. Form that square; don't push down. Oh yeah, you're right. Do this. Slide it. So if your knife is covered in rice, you're not going to get through this cleanly. Okay? And then when you plate it, you're going to have all these little like crumbs and stuff, so you got to get that nice clean cut.

Oh, what the—look at that! It's perfect! Got this; my family's in town for the weekend. Um, I figured, you know, they, they flew all the way in from Boston, and I figured do something special. So got Che Roman on deck making some sushi tonight. I'm a little nervous though because apparently Graham is also making sushi. Does he—has he any experience making sushi prior to today? No! How many years does it take to master the rice? It's all a lifetime.

So we're starting them off right now! I got salmon, I got avocado, I made probably 80% of the rolls in here. They're not perfect, but you know what? They're made with care and love. Excuse me, guys, here's the round number one. Also, would you like wasabi and ginger? Of course! Yeah, okay, oops, I made a bit of a mess. I'll clean that up. Oh, crap! Okay, I'm sorry it looks like they’re enjoying the food though and I have a feeling they're going to have a difficult time figuring out who made which roll.

I think by the time they get it, it's going to look pretty close. So this one's a little—it's got a little small piece of salmon in it; it looks a little disproportionate. So I got a good chunk for you guys here. This is the big one. So we have stripe jack, yellowtail, salmon, tuna, and somewhat fatty tuna right here. So this is the good stuff right there. So enjoy! There's really a lot of ways to do it; it's probably one of the hardest things to grab the concept of because it's steps that you first have to memorize and then eventually it becomes muscle memory.

When you're putting it together, grab this piece while you're grabbing this piece. You have your rice here. B on my finger, wasabi, thumbs on top, you're pushing this in. It rolls—you press over, finger blocks this off. This hand again gets the sides. You turn it on your finger, shape it again. Plate's facing you, fish is facing you now, so the skin of the fish is facing you. When you're ready to serve to the guest, you turn this bad boy and give it to him like that. So now they see the fish.

Oh my gosh! There is a method to all of it! And are you serious? And it flips; it rolls over. You use your finger's momentum to roll it over. Now it's standing up—fixing that again! Voila! I mean, it was like a Michelin star sushi dinner overlooking Las Vegas at sunset. And I got to admit, Graham, you did a fantastic job—oh, like a pro! Really, my first time ever! Yeah!

Hey, so what do the numbers look like for an event like this? Um, we spent about $600, $700 in cost—fish, rice, seaweed. We charged each person $160. We're making about an extra just over $1,000 in profit. At the end of the day, it's not about the money; um, I'm really passionate about this. I love being a sushi chef. I've put in countless hours, blood, sweat, and tears into this to become good—not even the best—just to become good.

And this is where that passion comes in because if you don't like what you do, no matter how much you try, it's not going to translate to this beautiful thing that people experience. As far as doing something like this to make extra money, I would say it's not something that you could just get started with overnight and go to the store and get a few hundred supplies and then make $1,000. You know, unlike cleaning windows or cleaning cars, there's so much more that goes into it, and I can see how it takes people years just to get competent enough.

And when you combine that with like getting clients, making sure you don't have as much waste, and then, you know, there's so much coordination that goes into this that, uh, you really have to have a love for it. Oh, and by the way, Roman said that if this video gets 50,000 likes, we’ll do naked sushi. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but we'll do it with 50,000 likes. So make sure to hit the like button, subscribe.

I'm exhausted; it's like 9:15 now, and I'm think I'm going to go home. Hey, I'm home! Hey, what's for dinner? Let's just order pizza.