Yeah, you read that right. Ayaka Ito opened a ramen shop to sell sake.

In the U.S., most people see sake as the drink you balance on a pair of chopsticks before you bang on a table to drop it into a pint of beer. Japanese-born, Ayaka sees sake differently—it’s as nuanced and sophisticated as wine. She fell in love with sake while working as a long-term volunteer in Japan after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and since then she has made it her life’s pursuit to champion it.

Back in Japan, people told her sake was too niche and that no one drinks good sake with ramen. She opened BESHOCK anyway.

Right before Christmas, I sat down with Ayaka and heard the version of this story that doesn’t show up on Instagram: the doubt, grind, and initiative it took to build something from scratch as an immigrant. Oddly enough, she didn’t grow up “in restaurants” and I think if she knew the perils of opening and operating a restaurant her fears may have stifled her willingness to act. Here’s the cleanest way to quantify the tailwind Ayaka was building into: exports of Japanese sake to the U.S. rose meaningfully in the same era BESHOCK was teaching San Diego how to drink it.

That’s the wave she was paddling into—before most people here even knew what good sake tasted like.

BESHOCK opened in 2016—right as sake was starting to move from “unknown” into something people could actually learn, order, and return to. When I asked Ayaka to reflect on the leap, she didn’t romanticize it:

I’m not sure she’s right—because sitting across from Ayaka, there was this warmth and passion in her approach to service. She walked me through a guided tasting the way she’s taught thousands of guests: start with what you already drink, translate it into a sake style, serve, then adjust. The experience was totally different than what you’d expect from someone at the top of their game. No pretentiousness—just guidance, then adjustment.

Had it not been for sake, I think Ayaka would’ve ended up at the same destination: building a place and community that takes care of others and meets them where they are.

So here it is: the story of a Japanese woman whose conviction carried her through the hardest parts of building a restaurant in a foreign country—just to give Southern California a better way to drink sake. Make it to the end…Ayaka’s graciously shared a hit BESHOCK recipe and sake tips.

Ayaka was born and raised in Nagoya in a business-oriented household. Her parents worked long hours, so family dinners often meant eating out—quietly training her palate early: she didn’t become biased towards particular flavor profiles or interpretations of food and dishes. Layered on top of that was omotenashi—the Japanese instinct to anticipate a guest’s needs before they’re asked.

Her relationship with food deepened unexpectedly when she worked at her father’s packaging factory. Day after day, she ate the same cheap bento—and the longer she watched, the more it felt… suspicious. When her mother visited the supplier, the answer was blunt: room-temperature prep and preservatives heavy enough to keep everything “safe.” The supplier even admitted they wouldn’t feed it to their own family.

That was the turning point. Her mom opened a cafeteria to feed factory workers food she’d serve at her own table—then kept it going for years even when the economics didn’t reward it.

That choice, prioritizing people over margins, shows up again and again in Ayaka’s story. In Japan, companies often grow employees over years. You can feel that in her restaurants: in the consistency, in the service, and in how seriously the team carries the culture. “Restaurants” was plural for a reason, Ayaka eventually opened concepts around exceptional employees. More on that later.

Two forces shaped Ayaka’s path to BESHOCK: a life abroad and a tragic disaster that changed her relationship to what sake could mean.

High school in Canada, university in Hawaii, an exchange in South Korea, and 20+ countries later—Ayaka developed an intuition that has allowed her to draw from different service and culinary cultures that would eventually lay the foundation for BESHOCK. She learned that if you want people to try unfamiliar things, you have to make it approachable. That intuition allowed her to innovate where necessary, but not at the expense of authenticity. 

Then 2011 changed everything. After the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Ayaka returned to Japan and stayed on as a long-term volunteer in the affected region. In Miyagi, she saw local economies collapsing as young people left—and she saw sake as one of the few products capable of carrying a region’s identity forward. 

She learned from brewers, places, and people trying to rebuild. That’s where she fell in love with sake and saw it as something worth championing.

Ayaka graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2013. By then, she already knew she wanted to pour sake for a living. But, the warnings were constant—sake is niche even in Japan, so why would it work in the U.S.? Still, she kept studying, kept learning, and eventually formalized the craft through sake training and credentials becoming a kikisake-shi (the equivalent of a wine sommelier)—it’s still relatively rare in the U.S.

Then she made the leap.

In Japan, ramen isn’t typically a sake pairing—and that was exactly the point. If Ayaka wanted Americans to learn sake, she needed an on-ramp. At the time, she knew ramen the way most people do: as a customer. So she trained for months in Japan to understand what ramen is supposed to taste like before trying to reinterpret it.

But, having been exposed to the world and Western culture, Ayaka knew she didn’t want the cramped, fast-turn model in the U.S. If sake was the mission, BESHOCK had to be a place where people could sit, talk, and stay.

With that in mind, Ayaka and her childhood friend and partner, Masaki, went to the drawing board: ramen would bring people in, but sake and the room had to bring them back. With Masaki’s design background, they built a space that felt both unapologetically Japanese and unmistakably American: roomy, warm, and made for lingering.

When you walk into BESHOCK, sake is as front-and-center as the ramen—by design.

In 2016, BESHOCK opened its doors. The name BESHOCK (Bi-sho-ku or 美食) means "The Beauty of Food" in Japanese. That same year, Ayaka also helped build a community around sake in San Diego via the San Diego Sake Club. She curates bottles from smaller breweries, and she even has sake brewed specifically for her program. Today, she hosts brewers from Japan and connects a tight-knit community of chefs.

A lot of restaurant stories stop at the food. This one can’t, because her real signature might be what she builds behind the scenes: teams that stay, grow, and take pride in carrying the culture. Any restaurant person knows this: leadership shows up in the food, whether you want it to or not. One of the toughest, if not the toughest, part of the industry is keeping and retaining talent.

Ayaka’s approach to excellence and growth feels distinctly Japanese: train deeply, empower early, elevate the obsessive ones, and protect the culture. Her team is taught to practice omotenashi.

I don’t know many owners who take team members to Japan on their five-year anniversary—but Ayaka does. She invests in her team and, in return they invest in BESHOCK.

It gets even better. BESHOCK sits under a company co-founded by Ayaka and her mom called Dreampeer—a peer group of people with dreams, making those dreams happen together.

Ayaka described opening new concepts not as expansion for expansion’s sake, but as a way to give exceptional team members their shot—bartenders who want their own bar, chefs who want their own bakery, leaders who’ve outgrown a single room.

If you’ve been around San Diego, you’ve probably seen the other Dreampeer concepts too: ASA Bakery, Bar Kamon, and Sushi Gaga.

So what’s next for Ayaka and BESHOCK? Deeper sake education, more Japanese concepts, and more ways to bring regional stories into everyday San Diego life.

Here’s what Ayaka wants to leave with you: if you appreciate the nuance of Japanese cuisine and culture, give sake a real try. It’s a generational art — and choosing to order it helps keep it alive.

After the interview Ayaka was gracious enough to walk me through sake as a beginner and I took some notes that you can throw in your back pocket. Turns out you can sip sake like wine. It’s not just for sake bombs.

You probably already know your favorite drinks and those preferences are a great starting point. Ayaka trains her staff to guide beginners by asking what they normally enjoy drinking and she recommends readers telling servers/bartenders exactly that as a starting point. Here are some nuggets she shared with me based on diner preferences:

Ayaka notes that serving temperature is “really important” to the experience. Some sake flavors and notes need the right conditions to express their personality.

If sake piques your interest, start simple: tell someone what you already like to drink, then let them guide you from there. Ayaka’s method works because it meets people where they are.

And, if you’re ever in San Diego, come enjoy some sake with ramen on the side at BESHOCK—you’ll be in good hands.

For this issue, we’re 86’d. Until next time, gang.

-Tong

P.S. Ayaka shared a hometown Nagoya-style Chicken Karaage Recipe. Check it out down below!

Nagoya-Style Karaage Recipe

1 lb of Chicken — Serves 2

Step 1 — Marinate the Chicken

Step 2 — Make the Glaze

Step 3 — Fry

Step 4 — Toss

Notes from Ayaka and Wing

Wing told me his first meal in Nagoya with Ayaka’s dad was at a chicken wing joint. He was honest and said:

I’ll second that, Wing.