Itamae and omakase: two words for a sushi bar (板前 お任せ)

At a Japanese sushi bar, the itamae (板前) is the chef, and omakase (お任せ) is the way of ordering where the chef chooses everything for you. 板前 is 板, board, plus 前, in front: the person in front of the cutting board. お任せ comes from 任せる (makaseru), to leave something to someone, so ordering omakase says “I’ll leave it to you”.

板前: in front of the board

板 (ita) is a board or plank. The 木 on its left is wood, and the 反 on its right gives the sound, han or ban. In a kitchen, the board is the cutting board, まな板 (manaita).

前 (mae) means in front, or before, as in 名前 (namae), name, and 午前 (gozen), morning.

So 板前 is “in front of the board”. The word can mean the place itself, the spot in a kitchen where the cutting board stands, as well as the cook who works there. Today it means a chef of Japanese cuisine in general, especially at a high-end restaurant, not only a sushi chef. The head chef is the 板長 (itachou).

お任せ: putting the load on someone else

任 (nin, or makaseru) has 亻, a person, on the left, and 壬 on the right, which gives the sound. One explanation is that it meant carrying a load on a shoulder pole, and that 壬 is a picture of the pole. Whatever it first meant, 任 now covers bearing a duty, as in 責任 (sekinin), responsibility, and 任せる (makaseru): to hand a job to someone else and trust them with it.

お任せ is the polite お plus 任せ, the stem of 任せる. It means leaving a choice to someone else, and in a restaurant that someone is the chef. Menus usually write it in kana: おまかせ.

Many sushi bars offer two ways to order. With おまかせ, the chef decides what to serve and in what order, often for a set price. With お好み (okonomi), “as you like”, you pick each piece yourself. It’s the same 好み as in okonomiyaki.

How to use it

• おまかせでお願いします。

  Omakase de onegai shimasu.

  The chef's choice, please.

• お任せします。

  Omakase shimasu.

  I'll leave it to you.

• 髪型はお任せします。

  Kamigata wa omakase shimasu.

  I'll leave the hairstyle up to you.

• 大将、おすすめは何ですか。

  Taishou, osusume wa nan desu ka.

  What do you recommend, chef?

• この店の板前さんは腕がいいです。

  Kono mise no itamae-san wa ude ga ii desu.

  The chef here is really skilled.

• お任せします is everyday Japanese, not just sushi talk. People say it to a hairdresser, to a colleague planning a party, or to a friend picking a restaurant.
• Regulars often call the owner-chef 大将 (taishou), “boss”. It’s friendly and a little casual. To talk about a chef politely, say 板前さん (itamae-san).
• An itamae cooks Japanese food. The head chef of a French or Italian restaurant is usually called シェフ (shefu) instead.
• English has borrowed omakase. Restaurants outside Japan use it for a chef’s-choice menu, often at a fixed price.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Picture the chef standing in front of the board (板前), knife ready. You say おまかせ, and the decision moves off your shoulders onto his, like a load on a carrying pole (任).

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Jisho (JMdict): 板前
• Wiktionary: お任せ (etymology)
• Wiktionary: 任 (glyph origin)

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.