Miami Restaurant Serves Up Sushi, Sashimi on Naked Models

Credit: The Catalina Hotel

File this under things you didn't really want to know but ABCNews.com told you anyway: If you put wasabi on your nipples, they'll burn for a week.

You're welcome.

Servers at Kung Fu Kitchen & Sushi learned that lesson the hard way when they started offering patrons sushi served on naked men and women to the tune of $500 per "human platter" last month. They've had three naked sushi parties in all.

"There's a lot of things you don't think about when it comes to naked sushi," restaurant owner Nathan Lieberman told ABCNews.com. "Now, we put plastic over the nipples, like Saran, and then we cover the nipples in wasabi."

Lieberman said naked sushi was the brainchild of Chef Glenn Lopez, who works in the kitchen. Lieberman figured the Japanese have been dining off naked bodies for "thousands of years" and wanted to give his patrons "the royal treatment" for Miami Spice, the city's restaurant month, he said.

Initially, Lieberman said he was going to hire models from a modeling agency, but his servers begged him for the job.

"I have a very good-looking staff," he said. "They said, 'We want the money, and we like to be naked.'"

When a bachelorette party requested a male model, they used one of their sushi chefs, "a real stud," Lieberman said.

The pre-booked naked sushi event serves about 10 people and includes sake and the occasional conversation tidbit from the person under the sushi.

Lizandra DeLeon, 34, had his bachelor party two weeks ago at Kung Fu Kitchen & Sushi - complete with naked sushi.

"The funny thing is this is the only thing I'm really open about what happened at my bachelor party," he said, laughing.

He said he and his friends sat down in an outdoor part of the restaurant (there was a swingers' party going on indoors), and they were a little anxious as they stared at the then empty table.

Their human plate, Chloe, came out in a robe, and they watched with the rest of the outdoor patrons as a chef decorated her with sushi pieces. DeLeon said only he was allowed to take a piece of sushi off her body; the manager handed everyone else individual rolls.

"It was an amazing experience," he said.

All right, all right. But doesn't this violate some sort of health or restaurant code?

Not really, state officials say.

"Generally speaking, as long as the restaurant is adhering to FDA rules regarding no bare skin contact, it should be in compliance," said Sandi Poreda, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

According to that code, employees need to wash their hands and should minimize bare skin contact with food when it is not in ready-to-eat form.

Liberman said the servers scrub the model beforehand as if they're "surgeons." They then cover the model's private parts with banana leaves before strategically placing nigiri on her stomach and sushi rolls on plates that bridge over her legs.

"Sashimi is usually around the breast area because it sits nicely," he said.

Kung Fu's most recent restaurant inspection occurred in May and included seven critical violations - one of them being a lack of soap for hand-washing.

On the bright side, we're pretty sure the restaurant was more interested in putting sushi on other body parts.