Sushi does not have a single inventor, but the modern style most people know today is usually credited to a Japanese chef named Hanaya Yohei in the early 1800s.

Early preserved-fish origins

The very earliest forms of sushi came from Southeast Asia as a way to preserve fish by fermenting it with rice, a style now called narezushi. This technique spread to Japan centuries ago and gradually evolved as people began eating the rice along with the fish instead of discarding it.

Birth of modern sushi

What most people think of as “sushi” today—fresh seafood on vinegared rice—developed in Japan during the Edo period. Hanaya Yohei is widely believed to have created or popularized nigiri-zushi around 1824 in Edo (now Tokyo), turning sushi into a kind of quick, street-side fast food.

Why there is no single inventor

Because sushi began as a preservation method that slowly changed over many centuries and across regions, no one person invented “sushi” in the broad sense. Instead, Hanaya Yohei is best described as the inventor of the modern nigiri style, while anonymous cooks and communities in Southeast Asia and later Japan created its much older fermented predecessors.