The naked plate piled high: This is body sushi

A friend tells me about a thing called “body sushi� and at first I think she is referring to some horrific industrial accident, like the guy who got his arm caught in the logging machine in that “Drama in Real Life� I read when I was 10 years old and remember to this day. But no, she is talking about something else entirely, something that would never appear in Reader’s Digest, something she has heard about on a radio interview with chef Gary Arabia.

Arabia used to be in partnership with Tommy Tang and is now owner of Global Cuisine, a local catering company with restaurants in Hollywood and West Hollywood. When KCRW’s “Good Food� host, Evan Kleiman, asked him what was the hottest trend in his business right now, Arabia answered “body sushi.� He went on to explain that this was a very special presentation during which pieces of sushi were served on the mostly naked prone body of a very lovely young model.

As opposed to, say, a plate.

Kleiman was interested but unfazed. After a few foodie-type questions, she moved on. My friend, on the other hand was quite fazed and unable to move on. Instead, she logged onto Arabia’s Web site and found a photo of that very lovely young model, who is lying on a table surrounded by candles and chopsticks and dipping sauce. Her nipples are covered with flowers; below her waist, she wears a g-string and a few more flowers. Between her breasts, along her belly and down each thigh are ti leaves on which rest some very nice-looking pieces of sushi.

It is difficult to know how to categorize this image exactly, where to put it in one’s personal cultural files. The subheading “Sodom and Gomorrah� springs instantly to mind, as does ancient Rome under the rule, perhaps, of Caligula. For someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time arguing that Los Angeles does not deserve the reputation of insane excess so beloved of points east, the photo is particularly disheartening -- first the recall, now body sushi.

‘Celebration of beauty’

And yet.

And yet Gary Arabia is a very legit guy, and Global Cuisine is a very legit business. The restaurants are lovely, with not even a Dan Tana hint of debauchery, and the catering end has successfully pulled off major events for studios, award shows and celebrity clients. Arabia says he has been serving raw fish and rice on women fairly regularly for several years now, and yet there have been no anti-body-sushi picketers, no angry letters to editors as there were when a bar in Germany recently offered a similar event.

So what is going on with the body sushi?

First of all, Arabia points out that the photo does not in anyway truly capture the tenor of the event. And it’s true that even the most benign photos can take on a pornographic cast when viewed on the Internet -- something about the lighting. Body sushi, Arabia says, must be considered in context. “This is a celebration of beauty and food and environment,� he says, leaning over a plate of very delicious crab cakes in his restaurant on the Warner Bros. lot in Hollywood. “It is about the beauty of the food and the beauty of the woman. This is not a bachelor party experience.�

In fact, he says, he turns down many of the requests he gets for body sushi because the situation “isn’t right.� This can mean that the location won’t work -- because of obvious temperature concerns, body sushi doesn’t work outside -- or that Arabia feels the spirit of the client is not in keeping with the dignity of the presentation. “We want to create a whole new environment so it has to be the right set of circumstances.�

According to Arabia, body sushi has a long tradition in Japan; he first experimented with it nine years ago “for a very special celebrity client who wanted something completely different.� He did it again for the 1993 movie “Rising Sun,� but then let it go as his catering career took off. Three years ago, he broke with Tang and began Global Cuisine and made body sushi part of his repertoire. He created it for the infamous “naked sushi� episode of “The Surreal Life� and for as many as eight other events this year; the most recent was a backroom party of a local high stakes Pai Gow tournament.

And just a few weeks ago, he catered the 80th birthday party of a male client and created body dessert -- same mostly naked format, different food.

“It’s not like this is all I do; it’s a specialty. But,� he says, “I have been getting an inordinate number of requests lately.�

Arabia considers body sushi part of a larger trend and not the one preceding the End of the Civilized World. Angelenos have begun demanding interactive dining, food events in which there is much more going on than a shrimp pile, a few steam tables and a prime rib station. Apparently, we are way too educated about food to be impressed by a few white truffles and an heirloom tomato puree. Because so many of Arabia’s clients are in the entertainment industry, their exposure to “unique dining experiences� is fairly high. It takes a lot to impress and, it would seem, upset them.

Arabia says he has been surprised himself at how guests, particularly female guests, have reacted to body sushi events. “The women just love it. When we did ‘The Surreal Life,’ there were four guys, four girls, and three of the guys wouldn’t sit down [around the sushi model]. They were very uncomfortable. But the women loved it.�

George Nahas, managing partner of the Sunset Room, has the same observation. He has helped put together two body sushi events for clients who had told him they wanted something “completely different� -- one a mixer for about 50, the other a private party for 20 or so. Both were phenomenally successful, he says.

“I thought it would be very risque,� he said. “But it was so classy. The women and men really loved it. And the sushi was great.�

‘Oh, that’s cool’

For Nahas, body sushi is just another resource in a city full of surprises. “Everyone here has seen something or done something off the wall,� he says. “So they walk in, they may be surprised, but then they say, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ And it is. Of course, people in Missouri would probably have a heart attack.�

Arabia, who at 47 still has earnest collegiate good looks, believes that body sushi works best with a smaller crowd. “I once did a party for about 180, with four girls,� he says. “I don’t think I would do that again.� He primarily uses one model, whom he met when his company hired her as a server. (Repeated attempts to contact the young woman were unsuccessful.) “I looked at her and thought she would be a perfect sushi girl.�

A sushi girl is required to lie perfectly still for three hours. There is a pillow for her head and she may speak to guests if she wishes, but mostly she has to concentrate on steady breathing and other muscle control.

Arabia stresses that in body sushi, the food is the star. But looking at the photos Arabia has in his portfolio, which are similar to the one on his Web site, it is difficult to keep one’s mind on the food. I found myself contemplating the often unpredictable nature of the human body and its many necessary but unappetizing biological duties. Three hours seems an awfully long time to impersonate a piece of dinnerware, even with great abs. One also wonders where exactly “body sushi girl� fits in on the resume or if the full nature of the young woman’s job description has been relayed to her mother.

There is no doubt that in Arabia’s capable hands, body sushi is as classy as it gets. But to talk about such a thing in such benign terms as “beauty� and “environment� seems a bit disingenuous. Serving food on skin may be beautiful, but mostly it’s erotic, as every coed who has greeted her lover with a can of whipped cream, a bottle of maraschino cherries and a lascivious grin knows. The sexual frisson is what makes the event memorable, one way or another.

So it’s hard to know what to do with body sushi as a concept. If the model is willing and the guests are respectful, surely there is no harm, no foul. And perhaps, as Arabia says, in a high-end party context, woman-as-sushi-table seems exotic rather than sexual, cool rather than exploitive.

But then, one is forced to worry about the context itself -- are there really places in Los Angeles where the seats are so far removed from the floor of the stadium that they cannot hear the clash of the gladiators’ swords, the roar of the bloodthirsty lions?