Do312 Presents: Moving Parts — Patrick Bouaphanh of Jinsei Motto
The Chef behind Jinsei Motto is Doing Sushi on His Own Terms.
Patrick Bouaphanh Has Been Building Toward This Restaurant His Whole Career —
He Didn't Start Over. He Started Fresh.
Interview & Photos by Chris Mariano
Patrick Bouaphanh has been thinking about this restaurant for a long time. Not this specific corner of Logan Square, not the atrium with the afternoon light, not the room downstairs that will eventually become a Japanese-style listening bar, but the feeling of it. The vision. The one where the food is exactly right, the service is exactly right, and the space is entirely his.
He came up at two of Chicago's most respected sushi programs — Sushi Doku and Sushi San, part of the Lettuce Entertain You empire — then opened his own place in the West Loop under the Jinsei Motto name. That chapter ended before it should have. But if you ask Patrick about it, he doesn't call what came next "starting over." He calls it starting fresh.
Jinsei Motto is now open at 2456 N. California Ave. in Logan Square. There's a dry-aging program unlike anything else in the city, where a tuna might rest for 90 days before it becomes someone's dinner. Three tiers of omakase — intentionally priced so anyone can experience it, not just the occasional crowd. And soon, a listening room downstairs, built for the kind of night where the whole point is to sit still and actually hear the music. We sat down with Patrick to talk about all of it.
MOVING PARTS is our new interview series spotlighting the people shaping Chicago through food, music, art, nightlife, and culture.
The builders, creators, operators, and personalities behind the city's best spots.
Photo by Chris Mariano/ marz26
— THE Q&A —
Chris, Do312 Moving Parts: Everyone in sushi seems to be chasing freshness. You're doing the opposite with dry-aging. Why?
Patrick Bouaphanh, Jinsei Motto: It's not so much about chasing freshness — that's just the concept of seafood. Nobody really knows techniques on how to age and prolong the life of seafood, so freshness is the definite answer. People love, "we live in LA or somewhere off the coast, we catch a fish, cook it right there." That's just what everybody knows. But dry aging does something different for sushi. It improves flavor, texture. As part of the business it improves the yield — there's parts of the fish that you won't be able to use, which we can use, and it's edible. So that's the main idea.
Chris: How long are you aging for?
Patrick: Different fish, different sizes calls for different days. Smaller fish, three to five days. Salmons will go seven to fourteen. Tunas we can stretch anywhere from twenty-one days — we've gone almost ninety days just to test it out. But it doesn't always turn out right. I've had things that I've waited too long, cracked open into it, and it was horrible. Spoiled. We learn from it. What we have is data, and we just go off of that. But it's never the same.
Chris: Is a lot of it just messing around — getting a fish you've never worked with and seeing how far you can push it?
Patrick: Yeah, especially when you get something we're not familiar with. I'll be like, "Let's just go three days with one." And if it's good, we stretch it to seven. If we stretch it to fourteen and it's bad, we dial back and figure out what went wrong, and we'll try it again. And if it works, we just keep stretching, keep pushing — if it calls for it.
Chris: Do you find that process fun?
Patrick: : Definitely. With seafood, once you find that perfect window when it dry ages, it brings out the best flavors and textures — that's the reward. And then feeding it to a customer and telling them the story behind it.
“I failed six times and i finally got it right - and here's the final product. and they're just like: this is great. it's very rewarding .”
Chris: You're Lao American, you've built your career in Japanese cuisine. Does that ever create tension — or does it actually give you something most Japanese-trained chefs don't have?
Patrick: We live in a new world where people are open to that. Earlier in my career, I was definitely intimidated. I didn't know anything. People would ask me lots of questions I couldn't answer. But now I'm able to answer a little more — still a little intimidated, especially when I go to Japan. People do this for years and years, and I'm still not on their level. But still working towards building and being the best chef I can be. And that goes with the advantage of not being Japanese, because you work with a range of products that maybe a Japanese chef is not used to. Being Southeast Asian, there's a lot of bright flavors, herbs, some similar citrus. That gets all incorporated into the cuisine and my ideas. I think that works out pretty well.
“Being Southeast Asian, there's lots of bright flavors, herbs, SIMILAR citrus. That gets incorporated into the cuisine and my ideas. I think that works out pretty well.”
Chris: Being Lao American, how has your heritage inspired your cooking?
Patrick: Growing up cooking with my mom, my family — just remembering the flavors of what it tastes like and thinking, "Hey, maybe let's try it on this fish." For example, we have for dessert a tiramisu — right now it's lemongrass and lime leaves. That's Southeast Asian right there. And we've gotten great reception from that. If it works, it works.
Chris: You just opened your atrium, you're working on a patio, and you're considering a Japanese-style listening room downstairs. Why a listening room versus a normal cocktail bar?
Patrick: A listening bar is not new — it's been around forever, but it's catching up in Chicago. And I think people crave something different these days rather than just going out, talking, hearing just the loud crowd. A listening bar — you literally go in there, have a drink, and just listen to the music. They play old school records, vinyls, hi-fi audio equipment. It feels like the music is in your head. It's just a great experience rather than going out and grabbing a drink. We are definitely trying to do something different
Chris: Will you be serving food down there, and will the cocktails be different?
Patrick: We will be serving food — smaller menu. Cocktails will also be different. We're gonna treat it to make it special when you're down there. Our beverage director, Chris, has built something already that's special. And being in Logan Square with other great cocktail bars, the first question I asked him was, "Why not us?"
Chris: When you had your original location in the West Loop, you had an omakase menu. With this new restaurant, you brought three tiers. Explain why.
Patrick: The omakase boom in Chicago happened within the last decade — it's one of those things that have been around forever, and Chicago finally caught up. And everything was just priced outrageously. A lot of people would do $300 omakases, $500. Then $150 became the normal, then $200. It's an experience for someone, but now Chicagoans are getting more used to omakases. They know what it is. They know the quality. And I wanted to create something where someone could come back multiple times a week versus once a year — like you're celebrating your birthday, your anniversary, so you splurge. But this idea was to create different amounts of pieces. You can come back often, and it's not gonna break your bank.
And that's another reason why — the three different tiers. Obviously it gets more adventurous the higher you go. So if somebody's never tried it before, they don't have to drop $200 to experience an omakase because they don't know what it is. The cheapest one is $54. And that's what your average sushi guest is gonna spend on food anyways — so why not experience an omakase for that same price? And then you're gonna come back next week and be like, "Hey, let's do the next tier."
“The cheapest tier is $54. that's what your average sushi guest is gonna spend on food anyway - so why noy experience an omakase for that price?”
Chris: You came up at Sushi Doku and Sushi San. What did you learn there that you had to unlearn to make Jinsei Motto yours?
Patrick: Both restaurants taught me probably the most in my career. As far as unlearning — it's essentially picking and choosing how I wanted my restaurant to be run. It's not too much unlearning. It's doing something different from what they were doing, but still taking the best of what I've learned and incorporating it. I've never thought about what I unlearned. I just think about what has stuck with me — and that's what I think about every day.
Chris: What's one thing you took from each?
Patrick: Being at Sushi Doku, I had a great mentor — Chef Mariano. He would let you make mistakes, and then you would learn from it. He'd give you a path and let you do your thing. Then he'd tell you yes or no, and we'd build off of that every day. Sushi San was on another level. It made me perform at the highest level while being aware of my mistakes.
“The first place is: you make mistakes. The second place is: do not make a mistake. I just took those two and incorporated them into jinsei motto.”
Chris: You've had moments in your career where things didn't go the way you planned. What did starting fresh teach you about what you actually wanted to build?
Patrick: I've always had a vision — the perfect space, the perfect food, how service should be executed. Back in our original location, I tried to put as much of that forward as possible, and it came out great. But now having my first space that I'm able to build out from scratch — that is what feels good to me. The brand is still strong, so people still know us. But as far as putting my touches on interior design, service, food — we get to start fresh.
Chris: What does Jinsei Motto actually mean?
Patrick: Jinsei Motto means "more life." It's something that stood out to me starting in the pandemic. I was working fourteen, sixteen hours a day, six, seven days a week — nobody knew what to do or how to approach the pandemic. That was just all we knew: how to run this business. And at a point nothing really changed, and I thought — I'm craving more life.
“At a point nothing really changed. and i thought - I'm craving more life."
Chris: When people dine here, what do you want them to walk away with?
Patrick: We can go back on that term — More Life. Whether you haven't had dry-aged fish, haven't had an omakase — experiencing our food, it's rewarding. When you leave happy, you return. People are always like, "I just had the best meal of my life." And if they go somewhere else after and it doesn't meet their expectations — that, to me, is more life.
— WHILE YOU'RE THERE —
Jinsei Motto is at 2456 N. California Ave. in Logan Square. The three-tier omakase starts at $54
— no special occasion required. The listening room downstairs is coming soon.
Reserve at jinseimotto.com · Follow @jinsei.motto
Wednesday – Thursday 5PM – 10PM
Friday – Saturday 5PM - 11PM
