At first glance, Alessandro Borgognone and Daisuke Nakazawa would seem to have nothing in common, save for their bald heads.
Borgognone, 33, is a fast-talking Italian guy from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who has spent the past two decades manning his family’s red-sauce restaurant in The Bronx.
Nakazawa, 35, is a soft-spoken, kindeyed chef from the suburbs of Tokyo who spent more than a decade diligently apprenticing under one of Japan’s most tyrannical sushi masters, regularly breaking into tears when his work didn’t meet his boss’ expectations.
But the unlikely duo are business partners, and they have a smash hit in their 6-month-old West Village restaurant, Sushi Nakazawa. Scoring a reservation, especially for one of 10 seats at the sushi bar, is nearly impossible, and critics and foodies are buzzing over the $150 omakase, which has been hailed as being Tokyo quality. It’s hardly the sort of place you’d expect to be run by a guy whose previous restaurant is an outer-borough Italian joint.
It all started one August night in 2012. Borgognone finished his shift at his family’s Morris Park Italian eatery, Patricia’s, and sat down to watch the 2011 documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” about 85-year-old Japanese sushi master Jiro Ono.
Nakazawa is featured prominently in the film as Ono’s tireless apprentice — one so devoted to his craft, he cried tears of joy when he finally made an acceptable tamago (egg custard) for Ono after no fewer than 200 rejections.
Borgognone was awestruck.
“I thought the skill and preparation were incredible and was amazed by the training the sushi chefs went through,” he says, chatting on a recent afternoon at Sushi Nakazawa, while wearing a fetching striped scarf left behind by a patron. (“I took it to the dry cleaners,” he says. “Pretty, no?”)
Hours after watching the film, Borgognone Facebook-messaged Nakazawa, with the help of Google Translate, and proposed they open a restaurant together in New York City. At the time, the talented sushi chef was working in semi-obscurity for another chef in Seattle.
“I’m the only one who contacted him,” says Borgognone, who had never dreamed of opening a sushi spot prior to seeing the documentary. (He has long had an interest in Japanese culture, though. He told The Post he has a large, Japanese-themed tattoo on his thigh, featuring a koi fish.)
“I can’t imagine that no one else approached him,” Borgognone continues. “You’ve got to have balls, and I guess I do.”
(According to Nakazawa, one other person — “someone from Las Vegas” — reached out to him, but it was the now-Staten Island resident Borgognone who persisted.)
In November 2012, Borgognone flew Nakazawa to New York City for an introductory meeting.
According to Borgognone, it was “horrible.”
“He didn’t speak English. I didn’t speak Japanese,” he recalls. “We had a translator there, and she didn’t speak anything. It was the most f – – king retarded conversation that we had.”
A few more meet-and-greets followed, despite protests from Borgognone’s wife, who thought the plan was crazy.
“Listen, I respect my wife,” says Borgognone, who attended culinary school, worked as a chef at Felidia in Midtown East for two years and briefly flirted with running for Congress in 2012. “But at the end of the day, it’s really, really simple. I go home and, you see these pants? I put them on in the morning. I wear the pants.”
Apparently, she wasn’t the only skeptic.
“I’m thinking, he’s a crazy,” recalls Nakazawa, whose English has improved immensely over the past year. (Borgognone, for his part, has a Japanese language tutor come to the restaurant three times a week.) “He don’t know my character, he don’t know my skill, he’d don’t know anything.”
Nakazawa was ultimately won over when Borgognone said the restaurant should bear his name.
“We talked for two months, I give to him the concept and he give to me the restaurant name: Sushi Nakazawa,” says the sushi chef with a laugh. “And then I trust him. Before Sushi Nakazawa name, I don’t trust.”
The two opened the restaurant in August, and by December the New York Times had awarded it four stars — one of only six restaurants in NYC on which the newspaper has conferred that honor. And while it boasts many aspects of a traditional sushi bar, such as a distaste for soy sauce, Borgognone was keen to make it his own.
“We wanted to think outside the box,” he explains.
To that end, the 21-piece omakase experience concludes with a yuzu sorbet made by his Italian father.
“I thought it was a unique touch,” says Borgognone. “I think my dad’s a great baker and pastry chef, and I was happy to involve my family in Sushi Nakazawa.”
(That baker, Calogero “Cannoli” Borgognone, was named at a mob trial two years ago, when a witness testified he falsely boasted he was a made man in the Colombo crime family. The younger Borgognone tells The Post: “I’m not a part of anything, nor is my father. I think it was a mistake. I don’t care about that.”)
Despite the restaurant’s instant success, Borgognone is still making tweaks, especially to the décor, which looks less like a high-priced sushi joint and more like an austerely chic ’80s kitchen.
“Now, is the décor absolutely fantastic?” he asks of the white marble bar counter and black leather swivel stools. “I’m the first one to tell you no.”
The sushi, on the other hand, is. Nakazawa’s haysmoked skipjack, still-wriggling tiger shrimp and, yes, his perfected tamago are being hailed as a new level of sushi for New York City.
But Borgognone isn’t resting on his laurels. Asked if he plans to poach any more chefs, his eyes light up conspiratorially.
“How do you know I’m not poaching one right now?” he asks, one eyebrow raised Ray Kelly-style.
“I can’t tell you their name, but I assure you that I am. You’ll hear about it in the next month or two,” he says.
Until then, Borgognone — who goes out for a bowl of pasta “every night” after he leaves the restaurant at 9:30 p.m. — is busy working the room at Sushi Nakazawa like a proud father of the bride, and fostering his star chef’s potential.
“He feels like he’s liberated,” Borgognone says of Nakazawa. “Especially coming from Jiro Ono. He worked there for 11 years and it was such a strict place.”
“He was looking to break out of that place. Seriously. I think he was a prisoner, and you know, finally he’s out and he’s having fun and he’s doing what he wants to do, and I’m happy that he’s doing it and that he’s doing it with me.”