Bruce Rickett and Jae Pickrell’s Iai is a tour de force of the couple’s singular vision for Japanese cuisine
This is an excerpt from the MEGA December 2024-January 2025 Dining feature
Much has been written, said, and posted about Iai, the sushi kappo restaurant recently opened by Bruce Rickets and Jae Pickrell. Even before it opened its doors on October 1, 2024, it was already the talk of the town. This is hardly surprising, given that Bruce Ricketts is widely known in the local food scene for Mecha Uma, Sensei, and La Chinesca; and Jae Pickrell had been a long-time magazine editor until she stepped into her calling as a restaurateur, taking Bruce’s concepts to the next level by way of branding and operations. Their marriage and partnership continue to prove to be a match made in culinary heaven with Iai and all that the restaurant stands for and serves.
THE PARTNERSHIP
“I feel like we’ve kind of spoken the same language for a really, really long time now,” Jae shares. “The sense of collaboration is still deeply there. And what makes it work so well is that while we have different personalities, we share the same traits that make our professional lives quite efficient. We’re both obsessive, and we egg each other on.”
She and Bruce have been together for 14 years already, even before he opened Sensei — an unorthodox izakaya in BF Homes, Parañaque. In fact, he credits Jae for getting him on the Japanese food track. “It was actually Jae who exposed me to proper Japanese food,” he shares. “I decided to do Japanese because I felt that it was a better way to communicate and get to know customers.”
And in terms of customers, Jae is the ultimate regular. The one who has been with him — and got him into — this rabbit hole of obsession with Japanese food. “She knows my food well and she sees where it could be. She also has a very different way of seeing the food, from a perspective that respects my way and growth.”
Once an editor, always an editor. Jae has helped Bruce navigate, articulate, and edit his obsessions. “One of the key skills of an editor is to have a strong viewpoint but also have the ability to see things from different perspectives, right?” she posits. “And then you work with creatives who have different identities and perspectives, then you evaluate things as a reader for readers. That’s a skill that I’m able to use to full effect in our partnership.”
This is what sets Bruce’s cuisine apart: this desire to have an interaction with his customers and his intuitive way of coming up with new dishes as he gets to know the people he’s cooking for. It’s an exciting interplay of culinary skills and discipline with spontaneous cooking. He started with Sensei and continued to grow his unique yet respectful take on Japanese cuisine in Mecha Uma, and he has perfected this art — or close to perfecting it — in Iai.
THE DETAILS
Iai is the embodiment of Bruce and Jae’s partnership. According to Jae, this restaurant is 100% Bruce. Every millimeter of it. “The concept here is truly the extension of his identity where for him it’s all about the craft,” she says. “It terms of design, I have my own personal preferences, but I also am very familiar and have a different level of intimacy with Bruce’s perspective, such that I know what he would like to express, and if I feel like it’s not coming through enough just yet, I can articulate that for him.”
Much like Bruce’s sushi omakase, Iai is the sum of parts that each have a story of their own. It is wabi in concrete form. Restrained, but more than meets the eye. Just to name a few: The sea urchin lamps hanging over the tables and the abaca and mother of pearl placemats are made by Indigenous, a brand that works with indigenous people groups in the Philippines. The black and red wajima-nuri sitting innocuously behind the chef’s counter came from a prefecture in Japan specializing in a specific style of lacquered wood. The argeta (the platform where the sushi is presented) was made by Gaku Shakanuga, a ceramic artist from Higashiiwase, Toyama Prefecture. The charred banana laminate on the walls gives a wonderful yet subtle detail that is unique to Iai.
“It’s a bit much,” Jae admits, while holding an unglazed ceramic tea cup by the ceramicist Asato Ikeda, “But it all feels subtle. Everywhere you look, you feel the attention to detail. You feel the love.
“The way we approach Iai is like every single thing has to be something we like.”
More on Iai and this perfect collaboration between Chef Bruce Ricketts and Jae Pickrell MEGA’s December 2024-January 2025 issue , now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photographed by GRANT BABIA
