When the second season of the cooking competition show “Morimoto’s Sushi Master” airs in April, it will be with a homegrown ingredient. Milwaukee chef Jason Morimoto, longtime chef at Japanese restaurant Screaming Tuna, is one of the show’s eight contestants vying for the title.
The show’s premise sees the contestants in a series of cooking challenges created by lead judge Masahuru Morimoto (an Iron Chef who competed on the Japanese TV cooking show). The winner receives a grand prize of $25,000 and the title of Sushi Master. It’s only by coincidence, says Screaming Tuna co-owner Cristian Vega, that the Milwaukee cheftestant has the same last name as the man for which the show was named.
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Although the filming for the six-episode season was completed back in February of 2024, it was only a few days ago that the Milwaukee contestant learned when the show would air, says Vega. “We were starting to wonder if it was ever going to happen,” says Vega. “It’s been just scrambling/non-stop getting ready since then.”
The full season (six episodes) will be available to stream on April 25 on the Roku Channel. How it started was with a feeler from a casting director in 2023. As Vega tells it, he and Morimoto were skeptical but jumped in anyway. Time passed, and crickets. When they did hear news, it was that Morimoto was the “9th contestant” chosen, which meant he was on stand-by if one of the eight dropped out. Which is exactly what happened.
Vega doesn’t have specific details yet but plans to host a series of watch parties after the show airs at the Screaming Tuna location in Mequon Public Market (6300 W. Mequon Rd.), where Morimoto has been based since 2019.
“He’s always been amazing,” says Vega of the self-taught Screaming Tuna chef. “But he never fully believed in himself the way anybody that ever worked with him did. It’s not his thing. So to get the praise that he was able to get from [the show] was just life altering.”
