Kotaro “Taro” Arai was born on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu. Taro’s parents opened a Japanese restaurant called Mikuni in Fair Oaks, Sacramento in 1987. Twenty years and several locations later, Mikuni is one of the most successful restaurant businesses in the Sacramento region.

Sushi chef Taro Arai is considered by some to be very imaginative, inventive, personable, unpredictable, energetic, eclectic, and even a little bit outrageous. Others think he might be taking it a bit too far from what’s considered traditional sushi.

Still - he’s one of the hottest and most renowned sushi chefs to hit the restaurant scene. Mikuni now has restaurants in Fair Oaks, Roseville, midtown Sacramento, and Elk Grove. He also have a new restaurant con­cept, Taro’s by Mikuni, located in Market Square at Arden Fair, where he is redefining what sushi can be.

Mikuni has been the winner of the “Best in Sacramento” readership survey for nine consecutive years, and under Taro’s leadership, Mikuni sushi chefs have conceived more than 300 original creations—many of them named for their loyal guests. Mikuni also features the World’s First Rolling Sushi Bar, a bus designed available for corporate and special events.

Mikuni has given more than $70,000 in gift cards and in-kind donations to a diversity of schools, churches, and charitable organizations. The restaurants also help to support locally based charities including the Cal-Expo Scholarship Foundation, the March of Dimes, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Sacramento Food Bank. As part of a community-focuses philosophy, Mikuni has also sponsored the Mikuni Summer Golf Classic for the past eleven years, donating over half a million dollars to Sutter Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Navigator Program.

More info:
Mikuni website
Taro Arai - sacdine.com