Katsuya Uechi, the master sushi chef whose restaurants helped define modern dining in Los Angeles, has died at 67. His restaurant group announced the death late Thursday, without disclosing a cause.

For a generation of Angelenos, Uechi's name was shorthand for a particular kind of LA sushi — serious about technique, but unafraid of spectacle and accessible to diners who did not consider themselves connoisseurs.

From Okinawa to Studio City

Uechi was born in 1959 in Okinawa, where his family ran a restaurant, according to a profile in Discover Nikkei. He trained at a culinary institute in Osaka and apprenticed behind sushi counters in Japan before moving to Los Angeles in 1984, drawn by the possibilities he saw for Japanese cuisine in America.

After more than a decade working the city's restaurant circuit, he opened Sushi Katsu-ya in a Studio City strip mall in 1997. The setting was modest; the fish was not. Word spread, lines formed, and the unassuming San Fernando Valley counter became a destination.

A dish that outlasted every trend

It was at the upscale Katsuya Brentwood, opened in 2006 in partnership with hospitality entrepreneur Sam Nazarian's SBE group and designed by French designer Philippe Starck, that Uechi created the dish most associated with his name: spicy tuna on crispy rice. The combination of pan-seared vinegared rice, spiced tuna and a sliver of chile became a signature of the brand and has sold more than two million servings, according to the restaurant.

"Chef takes great pride in his creation," Nazarian has said of the dish. "He especially loves that people continue coming back for it, even decades later."

The Katsuya name expanded to Hollywood and then well beyond Los Angeles, reaching locations in the United States and abroad. In announcing his death, the restaurant group credited Uechi with helping "shape the Los Angeles sushi landscape and beyond, making Katsuya a household name."

The purist behind the brand

Even as the brand grew, Uechi resisted becoming only a name on a marquee. He opened a smaller, counter-forward restaurant where he worked the bar himself, describing it as a place for purists, and he helped found a training institute in Los Angeles aimed at passing his craft to the next generation of chefs.

"Even though my drive for success is strong," he once said, "at my core I am a chef and I want to be cooking."

Los Angeles did not invent sushi, but the city helped turn it into something both rigorous and popular — a destination meal and a weeknight staple at once. Katsuya Uechi was central to that shift, proving that the long discipline of Japanese training and the sprawling appetite of LA could feed each other. He was 67.