Pocket-sized sushi restaurants, old-school Tokyo-style cafes, and affordable delis with build-your-own bentos are just the tip of a rapidly growing and highly specialised Japanese scene.
A mania for Japanese food is sweeping Melbourne, with onigiri stands, listening bars, specialist tofu shops and convenience stores rapidly sprouting all over the city. Unlike many other local Japanese restaurants, these new arrivals have a tight focus on particular dishes and styles of cooking, mirroring a vital aspect of Japanese culture: the commitment to mastering one thing.
Visitors to Tokyo often marvel at the quality of everything from soba noodles to Neapolitan-style pizza to French food. Specialising in doing one thing extremely well is a driving force in the country – and it’s an attitude that’s finding favour in Melbourne, too.
“So many Australian people are going to Japan now, so they’re finding out what real Japanese food is,” says Tomoya Kawasaki, who just opened Obanzai Mama in Fitzroy, a deli for Kyoto home-style dishes. “[Now is the time] to show them proper traditional venues.”
More than 900,000 Australians visited Japan last year, taking advantage of a strong exchange rate and direct flights. After eating at specialist ramen shops, Tokyo coffee houses (known as kissaten) and the country’s ubiquitous konbini (convenience stores), many have returned with a taste for the country’s hospitality.
At new CBD cafe Omo, co-owner Clara Son tried to recreate the warmth and vintage charm of the kissaten, which has been supplying Tokyo with coffee and comfort food well into the night for decades. It’s been a hit here, too: she says some customers wait up to 50 minutes for onigiri (rice balls).
Manato Hikawa runs another home-style venue, Gaku Obanzai Deli in Elwood, serving what he and Kawasaki refer to as “grandma food”. Both agree that the affordability of their dishes – which start at $12.50 – are a big part of their venues’ popularity at a time when many Australians are budget-conscious.
CAFE
Tokyo’s oldest cafes, kissaten, are cosy spaces where dark wood, porcelain and antiques sit in sharp contrast to contemporary cafe design. Omo, a newcomer in Melbourne, combines the best parts of both cities’ coffee cultures. There’s Eggs Benedict on shokupan toast, onigiri pan-fried in butter and soy sauce, caneles in flavours such as Earl Grey, and creative iced coffees made with Ona beans. The most popular is the birru latte featuring non-alcoholic beer, cream and espresso. Antique lamps and vases dot the wood-panelled space. An expanded menu (including dinner) will launch once gas is connected.
18 Merriman Lane, Melbourne, instagram.com/omojapcafe
RAMEN
For years, ramen in Melbourne usually meant bowls of collagen-rich tonkotsu (pork-bone-based) soup. More choice gradually arrived, but Shouyu-ya Ramen is geared around just one type: shoyu ramen, referring to the Japanese word for soy sauce. Savoury and clearer than tonkotsu, there are just three choices here: chicken, duck or vegetarian. Add on gyoza, or, for dessert, mochi skewers, and pick from many styles of sake and beer.
692 Sydney Road, Brunswick, ramen-shouyu-ya.square.site
CONVENIENCE STORE
Japan’s 7-Elevens and Lawsons are legendary for their high-quality snacks and cleanliness. Suupaa channels that spirit with polished stainless steel, grab-and-go items like onigiri and donburi (rice bowls), and coffee on tap. But you can also sit down (or even come for dinner on select nights) for udon noodles, hefty sandos and signature drinks, boozy or otherwise.
Shop 1, 65 Dover Street, Cremorne, suupaa.au
WHOLESOME
Two new eateries on either side of the Yarra focus on build-your-own sets of nutritious, simple food, most of it vegetarian. Gaku Obanzai Deli in Elwood offers eight different obanzai (side dishes) each day, including kale and bean sprouts soaked in soy-dashi marinade, and potato salad with smoked radish. Add-ons include teriyaki barramundi or agedashi tofu. Collingwood’s Obanzai Mama also has a cabinet packed with vegetable dishes (perhaps pumpkin simmered in soy, sake and mirin), many based on recipes from owner Tomoya Kawasaki’s mother and grandmother. Bento boxes, onigiri and egg sandwiches are also on offer. Both do takeaway.
Gaku Obanzai Deli, 161 Ormond Road, Elwood, instagram.com/gaku_obanzai_deli/
Obanzai Mama, 83A Smith Street, Collingwood, obanzaimama.com.au
TONKATSU
Two venues with big queues dominate discussions of the best crumbed pork cutlet in town. Katsuretsu is hidden behind noren curtains in an arcade and serves panko-crumbed pork striploin with slaw and three choices of sauce, from Japanese curry to dark miso. It’s by the Ton & Con crew in Windsor, who describe this as their express location. Katsuhon, a small timber structure beneath an imposing office building, looks air-lifted from a Tokyo street. 70 people at a time can sit down for teishoku (set meals of a main, soup, rice, pickles) served on wooden trays, with the hero dish being crunchy pork loin. Other crumbed and fried items abound, from meatballs to unagi eel.
Katsuretsu, Mid City Arcade, 200 Bourke Street, Melbourne, instagram.com/katsuretsuco
Katushon, 3/200 Queen Street, Melbourne, instagram.com/katsuhon_au
SUSHI
Maki are the original sushi handroll, wrapped immediately before eating to maintain their freshness. Hardly seen in Australia, they’re now served at two venues. Nori Maki feels like a high-end sushi counter; Temaki Sushi has just 10 seats and is a hands-on experience where you make your own rolls from a platter of small, inventive fillings.
Nori Maki, 7/235 Bourke Street, Melbourne, instagram.com/norimaki.au
Temaki Sushi, 15 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, temakisushi.au
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Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne eating out and restaurant editor.
