Subconsciously inspired by the novelty and trend of boba-style beverages, the Irvine-based Cup of Sushi, a new Japanese take-out concept, serves delicately layered, culinary mosaics of Japanese-inspired cuisine – in a clear plastic cup. 

For now, customers will find spicy tuna, salmon, yellowtail, rice and vegetable combinations. Munetatsu Go, manager at Cup of Sushi, explained that during conceptualization, boba became a direct line of inspiration, considering its popularity across the globe. 

“I think unconsciously, we get some inspiration from boba, which was kind of like a super trend last year in Japan,” Go said. “We are not trying to do authentic, traditional Japanese, but we kind of did a mixture, and fit it to the general American fusion-type of sushi. California Roll, Dragon, Rainbow, Spicy tuna – those are born in the U.S. so we started to take that and refine it.”

With a roster of different seafood, rice or noodle and veggie-filled cups, the Cup of Sushi team explained that each cup is designed to take the customer on a culinary journey through the different layers within each Cup of Sushi. 

“In Japan, we say veggie first. The way we recommend is to start with vegetables, at the top, with a small portion of protein,” Go said. 

After months of research, Cup of Sushi opened its first location in October as a takeout and delivery-only concept in Irvine. Using an Irvine-based cloud kitchen, Cup of Sushi allows customers to visit the store in person, but all the food is served to-go. 

Yet while the concept as a whole is seemingly game-changing in terms of “sushi-portability,” getting the food in the cup was the easy part considering the limitations brought on by COVID-19, according to Thomas Buckley, owner of Cup of Sushi. 

Headquartered in Tokyo, Buckley alluded to an ocean-wide door of challenges the team needed to pass through in order to bring this concept to an Irvine-based brick and mortar. 

“The pandemic was beginning to really look more and more serious, and we were looking at restaurant trends, with increasing numbers of orders being taken as delivery or takeout only,” Buckley explained in an interview with Irvine Weekly. “It was definitely affecting the percentage of orders for dine-in – and that trend was accelerated by the pandemic.”

After a month of being open to the public, Buckley explained how Cup of Sushi plans to target a specific audience in Irvine. Buckley also shared his thoughts on opening a brand new concept in the midst of a pandemic, and how this unique concept-in-a-cup was created.  

“It was not a straight line to that particular form factor. We spent a lot of time thinking about the target demographic and we used principles of design thinking and lean project management to go on a path of customer discovery: Who is our target demographic?” Buckley said. “So essentially, what we discovered, they love having beautiful food that’s Instagrammable, but they also want it to be healthy and nutritious, and they love novelty.”

Through this ideation process, the team incorporated a unique Japanese catch phrase to help guide the direction of the menu. 

“Nutritious things are beautiful, and beautiful things are nutritious,” Buckley said. “That’s kind of the rough translation of the Japanese phrase, and we wanted to do both – have something that’s very nutritious, but also looks really almost like a work of art.” 

Considering the attention to detail required to construct these edible artworks, assembling each “dish” at Cup of Sushi requires precision in order to consistently deliver the ideal textures and properly execute the flavorful experience. 

In describing the method the Cup of Sushi dishes are built with, both Go and Buckley agreed that the delicate cup building process mimics building a ship in a bottle. 

“We really care about the beauty of the layers,” Go explained. “We make sure that the line cook and the chef take time to make beautiful layers, so they use spoons and tongs to not mess up everything. That’s how we prepare right now.” 

Recently, Cup of Sushi added Karaage fried chicken and some additional desserts to the menu. While the idea of custom cup orders is something on the mind of every food blogger, Go explained the bandwidth for customizations is not quite in-sync, for now.  

“We really appreciate the voice of the customer, and we will release new items based on it. On our road map, we’re really interested in a custom cup [concept] as well.”

Sushi fans can get their fix by ordering directly from Cup of Sushi, and can also use third party delivery apps like Yelp and Postmates. Or check out the Cup of Sushi cloud kitchen in Irvine at 17951 Sky Park Circle, Unit F, Irvine, CA 92614. 

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