Eater Atlanta: ‘I Went to a Tuna Cutting in Atlanta. Here’s What Happened.’
By Henna Bakshi | May 5th, 2025
A stunning bluefin tuna sat atop a pedestal. Its glassy eyes glistened in the natural light from the windows. I knew the tuna wasn’t alive — but boy, did it look like it was about to wink.I went to my first tuna cutting at O by Brush, the one-Michelin-starred omakase option at Brush Sushi in Buckhead. As a handful of us took our seats around the fresh fish brought in from Mexico, chef Jason Liang picked up one of several knives (he also has a saw) and began slicing, hacking, and scraping. Off with the head, and then came the segments of fatty back (sekam), back cheek (kama-toro), collar bone, and that prized extra-fatty otoro belly.
The muscles in a tuna’s forehead (noten) are one of the rarest cuts on the fish, Liang explained as he pulled two beautiful segments from the head that looked like tenderloin. I could feel my own forehead tingle as he did this. He said this chef’s cut was highly prized for its muscle-to-fat ratio. Served beautifully as nigiri with a touch of fresh wasabi, I couldn’t believe how it melted in my mouth, with more structure and umami than otoro. Forehead is delicious.
A family affair
The kids seated at the omakase counter were the unlikely diners who left no crumbs. A family from Marietta, a couple and their two kids who had just turned 17 and 18, were celebrating the siblings’ birthdays, which were a week apart by the year. This dinner was their present. Liang let the kids scrape meat from the tuna’s spine, and you could tell they loved it.
“We wanted to raise adventurous food kids,” says their mother, Ansley Denihan. “We overshot, obviously. They started eating sushi at three or four. My son has been watching tuna-cutting videos out of Japan for years. At three, he was in love with Giada [De Laurentiis] on Food Network.”
Denihan and her husband spend a week-long staycation in Atlanta yearly, looking for interesting dining adventures. She says exposing her kids to food — bones, guts, and all — is a major part of their upbringing in understanding where food comes from.
“We do everything from hole-in-the-wall restaurants to Michelin,” says Denihan. “We talk to them about how to behave in a restaurant. When they were young, we’d tell them, ‘You’re gonna have to sit for a long time. What are some questions you can ask the other people in the group?’ I just wanted to raise really curious kids.”
Tuna ramen, tuna miso soup, tuna sando
As the segments of fish were whisked away to the kitchen, the chefs began serving courses of spicy tuna tartare, nigiri with the prized cuts, and a katsu-style sando made with tuna tail, which is a tougher part of the fish. The cheek was grilled and folded into a massive ramen with quail eggs and its own fat. Scraped spine meat (courtesy of help from the kids) was used in hand rolls, and other bits were used in a miso soup…
Read the whole story on Eater Atlanta.