Suupaa has brought a taste of Japanese convenience to Melbourne, easing the pang between visits to Tokyo.
Maybe you’ve been to Japan and marvelled over convenience stores selling immaculate bento boxes. Or perhaps you’ve listened to friends, fresh off the shinkansen, raving about life-changing 7-Eleven sandwiches. Well, restaurateur Stefanie Breschi, who has been travelling to Japan annually for 15 years, has finally decided to do something similar in Melbourne.
Suupaa is a Japanese konbini (convenience store) with a local lens: there is nothing else like it, though I am sure that won’t be the case for long. The concept is compelling, scalable and brilliantly designed. I haven’t felt this thrilled by a daytime offering for ages, maybe since cathedral-like city cafe Higher Ground opened in 2016.
If ever there was an antidote to working from home it’s this seven-storey Dover Street development, an easy walk to Richmond Station. The ground floor food tenants, Suupaa and Baker Bleu, are accessed via a triangular plaza that spills people into the neighbouring businesses. The cult bakery is earthy and rustic; Suupaa is fresh and crisp. Open since February, the precinct has become a destination as well as a pitstop for workers.
Suupaa is complex, including self-serve takeaway, chic retail and counter dining wrapped around an open kitchen. Everything feels intentional: the fonts, the flow, the cute puffer fish logo, the canny balance of form, function and fun.
Though konbini culture is the inspiration, it still reads as a Melbourne lunch spot, with an extensive menu, food cooked to order and meticulously curated drinks. There’s QR code ordering, but waiters offer full service too. Efficiency and hospitality find a happy middle.
Breschi’s business partners are Alex Boffa, Shannon Peach and executive chef Atsushi Kawakami; the quartet also own Future Future izakaya in Richmond. No-waste whiz Dennis Yong (formerly of Parcs wine bar on Little Collins Street) is on board too, developing dishes and ensuring as little food as possible hits the bin. Bread crusts are turned into caramel for swirling over soft serve, and veg scraps are pickled or added to a miso soup that changes weekly: mine hid comforting pumpkin cubes.
Sandos (sandwiches) are a key category, whether it’s the $12 vegan “egg” sandwich with smoked mayonnaise, or the epic dine-in real egg sando, with floofy crumbed omelette, curry ketchup and black garlic relish. It’s a banger.
There’s attention to detail with the noodles (udon and ramen are sourced fresh from local suppliers) and shortgrain rice. The sticky, nutty bespoke rice blend is the perfect adjunct to raw tuna seasoned with sansho pepper, avocado and fried nori.
Tonkatsu – the crumbed, fried pork cutlet that evokes enormous passion – is stabbed with a needling machine that promotes tenderness. The result is not as explodingly juicy as some iterations I’ve had in Japan, but it comes with a deeply umami Vegemite and red miso sauce that has ruined regular tonkatsu sauce for me.
Mortadella musubi (stuffed rice triangle) is an easy, salty winner, riffing on the Spam version that is a konbini classic.
Where the food offers utility, the beverages are more than simple thirst-quenchers. Single origin coffee beans and top-grade matcha are base ingredients for layered concoctions. Milo foam tops iced milk matcha; miso cream and lemon zest bring depth and spark to coffee cold brew. Suupaa is a flat-white-free zone: in a city that has long prided itself on espresso, it’s fascinating to see venues opening without it, and benefit from the ensuing creativity.
Japan is our most popular overseas destination, with a million Australians likely to jet over this year. Suupaa not only eases the pangs between visits, it’s a tasty testament to the great Australian bowerbird tradition of collecting influences from elsewhere and making them locally relevant. Super is as Suupaa does.
Three more cool convenience stores to try
Ikon Store
This K-mart (no, not that sort of K-Mart) serves on-trend Korean snacks, drinks and sweets, and has a DIY ramen bar where you cook instant noodles and add garnishes to taste. Open until 3am for post-club or insomniac cravings.
Shop 3, 163 Bourke Street, Melbourne, ikonstores.com.au
Foodle
The eastern suburbs Foodle is even more mega than the Highpoint OG. You can fill up a trolley with Asian groceries and fresh produce, but perhaps you want to watch noodle- and dumpling-making, enjoy point-and-pick hot dishes from barbecue to stir fries, and eat volcano onigiri (rice triangles with garnish “explosions”).
The Glen, Springvale Road, Glen Waverley, foodle.au
Maita
Chaddy’s new Market Pavilion has an enormous Asian grocer with all the packaged foods you could imagine, plus coffee crafted by a robot, freshly made dumplings, and ice-cream churned daily. Overwhelming in the best possible way.
Chadstone Shopping Centre, Dandenong Road, Malvern East, maita.com.au
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