In fact, the restaurants are so successful that when the doors to the 6-year-old Nobu Restaurant in New York open at 5:45 p.m., there is already a line of 30 people, with and without reservations, who have been waiting on the sidewalk for 45 minutes. Even then, anyone who is seated is "signed" to a verbal contract guaranteeing they will relinquish the table in time for the almighty 8 and 8:30 p.m. reservations.

It is what Richie Notar, former über-busboy of Studio 54 cum director of operations of five international Nobu restaurants and partner in Nobu Malibu, calls "a powerful reservation." Nobu London, Nobu Tokyo and the original Matsuhisa Restaurant in Beverly Hills are also powerful reservations. The soon-to-open Nobus in Miami's South Beach; Milan, Italy; and Sydney, Australia; are expected to share in the success.

But for all the frenzy and despair surrounding getting a table, once you're seated what lies ahead is an exquisite meal. Matsuhisa has invented a variation on traditional Japanese cuisine, blending the finest quality fish with nontraditional Peruvian and European ingredients like chilies, truffles, fois gras, garlic, olive oil and caviar, to come up with exquisite signature dishes such as yellow tail sashimi with jalapeños, squid pasta in light garlic sauce and new-style sashimi.

Born and raised in Japan, Matsuhisa has earned his right to innovate honestly by undergoing a rigorous classical Japanese sushi chef training, which began at the age of 18 and included sleeping on the floor of his mentor's restaurant. His duties included carrying the bucket on 6 a.m. trips to Tokyo's vast Tsukiji fish market and working until 1 a.m., 28 days a month for a tiny salary. Three years passed before he was allowed to touch the rice to make his first piece of sushi.

Despite the rigors of his training, this was something he had dreamed of since he was 12 years old when his older brother took him to a sushi restaurant for the first time. "Sushi is something very exclusive. It is not like a McDonald's, not like a hot dog, not like a French fry. It's very high-class cooking in Japan. It was different world, very powerful, with all the different types of fish and the old men working at the counter."

As soon as he graduated from high school where he was preparing to study architecture, he asked his family's permission to train to be a sushi chef.

Seven years later, in 1972, when Matsuhisa was 24 years old, a Japanese-Peruvian businessman who came into the restaurant twice a year invited him to Lima to open a traditional Japanese restaurant to cater to the executives at the big Japanese companies who had offices in Peru. Matsuhisa was instantly captivated by the local cuisine.

"Peru was the Incas, it has 3,000 to 4,000 years of history. Lima is close to the Pacific Ocean, so there is a lot of seafood. I'm very interested in different types of food -- ceviches, arroz con pollo, cilantro, garlic, chili, soups like chupe de mariscos. A different spice is the most interesting thing to me."

But after three years, when the Peruvian economy was suffering the effects of a failed agrarian reform, Matsuhisa had an argument with his partners who wanted him to economize. Frustrated by their demands, he decided to dissolve the partnership. "OK, I was young. I'm a chef, chef means like an artist; artist means doesn't care about food cost. They tell me you must buy low-cost fish, labor's too high, cut people. It's not my way. I like to have the best quality fish, the best service. This is still my philosophy. That's why Matsuhisa, New York, all the restaurants are a success."

After Peru, Matsuhisa tried Argentina, but despite the fact that there was a lot of fresh fish and three or four Japanese restaurants in Buenos Aires, in 1975 not a lot of Argentines were eating sushi. So he packed up his wife and two children and returned to Japan. But the country was then undergoing its own economic woes in the wake of the collapse of the "high growth age." Matsuhisa, however, had been spoiled by a lifestyle in South America that included a large house, a maid and gardeners. Life in a small Japanese apartment seemed less appealing. When he was offered a partnership in a new restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska, he asked his wife if he could try one more time to make a go of it outside of Japan.

Funds were limited so he spent six months doing the construction himself before finally opening Ki Oi (meaning Private Members Club) in 1977. Working 50 days straight after the opening, Matsuhisa took his first day off to celebrate Thanksgiving. "I was at a friend's house drinking wine, eating turkey. My partners call me: 'Nobu, hurry to the restaurant. There's a fire.'" He thought it was a joke, except that he heard the sirens over the phone and saw flames as he drove to the restaurant.

"Anchorage is a very small town and I can see the fire from far away. I was suicidal. I lost everything. It was loan money, no insurance. All I cared about was, 'How can I die? Was I going to jump in the ocean? Jump in front of the train?'"

Asked how he recovered, he says, "My babies were happy because usually I'm not home." Matsuhisa then packed up his family and returned to Japan. He stayed a week, just long enough to settle his wife and children with her family and then returned to Los Angeles like a runaway, with one small suitcase and $24 in cash. Once back in L.A., he found work as a sushi chef. When the restaurant was sold he moved to another restaurant. When that restaurant was put up for sale, he went to a friend for advice. "I don't want to go back and be like Anchorage and I still owe a lot of money, I have responsibilities to my wife and my family. This guy takes $70,000 and says 'Nobu, use this money. Anytime you get money you send it back.' He gave it to me like free money."

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