Founder & Fish Specialist
Sashimi DC · Washington DC
From investment manager in Tokyo to the World Bank Group to a fish counter on 14th Street. The path was unconventional. The reason was simple: Washington DC deserves genuinely good fish.
Keita Miyaki
Founder, Sashimi DC
1608 14th St NW, Washington DC
Background
Japanese Literature — BA & MA
Grew up in Hyogo Prefecture, attended Nada Middle and High School in Kobe, then moved to Tokyo for university. BA and MA in Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo, specializing in 18th-century literature centered on women in Kyoto — the world of Edo haiku, kabuki, and the play culture of the licensed quarters. Three academic publications followed, including two in the university's literature journal and a commissioned essay in the department society newsletter.
Investment Management
Investment management in Tokyo. And, between the work, exceptional fish — the kind that is simply part of daily life in Japan in a way it isn't anywhere else.
International Development & Economics
Left PIMCO to come to Washington DC for graduate studies at the School of Advanced International Studies — international development, economics, and the early realization that DC, a city full of people who had lived around the world, had remarkably poor access to quality fish.
Research & Evaluation
Five years at the World Bank Group — IFC (International Finance Corporation) as Research Officer in Global Macro & Markets Research, and the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), covering capital markets, housing finance, and securities settlement. Work that reinforced the observation that the relationship between food, culture, and quality of life is not incidental. Meanwhile, the fish available in Washington DC remained what it was.
Global Health Finance
Two years and three months in Geneva at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — a UN-mandated international health financing institution. Good work, important mission. But DC kept pulling — along with the unfinished question of whether someone could actually bring genuinely good Japanese fish to a city that deserved it.
Founded
Returned to Washington DC and opened Sashimi DC in Northeast DC. Direct sourcing relationships with Ikejime processors in Nagasaki and Miyazaki. Bluefin Tuna, Kagoshima Salmon, Hokkaido Uni — flown Fukuoka–Haneda–IAD.
New location
Moved to the current location at Rice Market, 1608 14th St NW, Lower Level, Washington DC. Open daily 11:30 am – 8:00 pm.
"Washington DC deserves access to fish of the same quality available at the finest counters in Japan."
The decision to leave a stable career and open a fish shop in Washington DC is not an obvious one. It came from a specific frustration — accumulated over years of living between Tokyo and DC — with the quiet acceptance that Americans don't know the difference between genuinely good fish and what passes for sushi-grade at a supermarket counter.
The problem is not demand. The problem is supply chains, assumptions, and the prevalence of carbon monoxide-treated fish that looks fresh long past the point where it isn't. It is a problem of traceability — or the lack of it. Most fish sold as sushi-grade in the United States cannot be traced to a specific location, let alone a specific farm or fishing method.
Sashimi DC was built to solve that problem for one city. Every piece of fish can be traced precisely: Goto Island, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Ikejime-processed. Packed in ice, including inside the body cavity, within minutes of harvest. Flown Fukuoka–Haneda–IAD. Available the same day at Rice Market.
Good fish doesn't need heavy sauce to cover up its smell. The same customer who came in skeptical about spending $55 on a piece of Akami comes back the next week without being asked. That pattern is the business.
The Fish
Every product at Sashimi DC reflects a specific sourcing decision. The Nagasaki Bluefin Tuna comes from Goto Island — one of the small island groups off the western coast of Kyushu where the cold currents and the farming practices combine to produce fish with exceptional fat marbling. The whole fish is Ikejime-processed at harvest, then broken down into saku blocks at a specialist Miyazaki facility chosen for its hygiene standards and Bluefin expertise.
The Kagoshima Sasshu Salmon is farm-raised on a special feed incorporating Chiran tea — which under FDA HACCP means no parasite hazard, served fresh, never frozen. The Hokkaido Uni arrives in auction-grade boxes. Every product has a stated origin. None is CO-treated.
Keita manages the cold chain personally. Every shipment is picked up directly from the Air France / ANA cargo counter at Dulles — not handed off to a broker. To protect the cold chain, ANA OCS was asked to store the fish in a separate unheated cargo room, away from the climate-controlled area used for live animals. Ice pack quantities are adjusted seasonally as temperatures rise toward summer. When a cracked Styrofoam box arrived after rough cargo handling, Keita communicated it to the processor; they added structural reinforcement tape around the body of each box. When Chutoro cuts arrived with duller color than expected, Keita identified the cause — insufficient post-harvest icing — and the processor corrected it the following week. That kind of direct loop is only possible without intermediaries.
Keita's writing on fish quality, Ikejime processing, and sustainability appears in the In Search of Umami series on Medium — a reference for anyone who wants to understand the science behind what makes sashimi-grade fish different.
Since 2024, Keita has hosted 8+ Fish & Wine Pairing dinners at Rice Taste Kitchen (2nd floor, Rice Market), pairing Sashimi DC's direct-import Japanese fish with wines from Sashimi DC's winemaker partners across Oregon, California, Virginia, and France. Each edition sells out. Upcoming dates are listed at sashimidc.com/events.
Press
Washingtonian Magazine featured Sashimi DC in August 2024, the year of the move to 14th St — profiling the Bluefin Tuna, Hokkaido Uni, and the quality arriving at Dulles every week.
Read the articlePress
PoPville featured Sashimi DC in April 2026 — covering the fish counter at Rice Market, the weekly Bluefin Tuna arrivals from Goto Island, and the direct-import sourcing model.
Read the articleIn Search of Umami
Medium · Technique
The ancient Japanese harvest technique, the biochemistry of ATP and inosinate, and why the best piece of fish on Wednesday may be better on Saturday.
Read on MediumMedium · Sustainability
The sustainability question that matters most for premium Bluefin — and why the answer is more nuanced than either side of the debate acknowledges.
Read on Medium1608 14th St NW, Lower Level, inside Rice Market. Pickup or same-day delivery across Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
(202) 234-2737