First Look: I enjoyed a Japanese feast in Danish surroundings as Sticks'n'Sushi opens in Glasgow

Sticks’n’Sushi has opened on George Square, marking the arrival of a Nordic-Japanese success story three decades in the making. The Copenhagen-born brand, famous for pairing Japanese sushi and kushi-yaki - better know as yakitori - with Danish design and traditions, has chosen Glasgow as the location of its first Scottish restaurant.

I spoke with Andreas Karlsson, CEO of the hospitality group, ahead of the opening and visited for myself the day before the official launch: “We established ourselves in London and the Southeast but we have always had a desire to go up to Scotland. We looked at a number of locations and this particular one on George Square, it was a very attractive building. It’s not a space where there is a big neon sign hanging outside. It’s not very loud, it’s understated and what we can create is a world of discovery for the guests in Glasgow to come and visit us. Glasgow will be our first Viking flag in Scotland, and we will make some new friends” Andreas explained.

The story of Sticks’n’Sushi is as international as its menu. “In the fifties a Japanese lady called Keiko, went as an exchange student to Scandinavia, which was an unusual thing to do at the time” Andreas explains. “She went to Copenhagen, ran into a tall, handsome Danish man, then eventually called home to say, ‘I have found the love of my life.’”

Two of Keiko’s sons, Kim and Jens Rahbek, would go on to found Sticks’n’Sushi in 1994 with their brother-in-law Thor Andersen, blending their Japanese and Danish heritage.

“Jens was a chef, he worked in Japan for eight years, he was a yakitori chef working in a hot kitchen cooking with skewers, so that’s where the sticks comes from in the name. Now, back in the mid-90s, there was no internet to research cuisines and this type of food was totally new to Copenhagen back then. It was actually Keiko who said they should add sushi to the menu to double their chances to succeed. That mix of the izakaya style skewers with the elegant sushi kitchen is not common in Japan at all.

“It worked and from that first tiny Copenhagen location it became a pretty good success. They scraped together the money they had to open then saved enough to open a second then kept going. Every single restaurant we have opened is still open - we have a hundred percent track record to date.

"It was a brave leap of faith for a small family owned business to open in the UK. And then the family sold a little bit of the shareholding to a local investor in Denmark who then helped to grow further. In the middle of this we had the bright idea to go and open up in Berlin as well in 2017, we have three restaurants there. After 31 years, Glasgow will be restaurant number 31. We still open every new restaurant like its the first one. We never take it for granted.”

Sticks’n’sushi, 7 George Square, Glasgow G2 1DY