Exemplary fish, exceptionally good rice. But 23 courses in two hours is two too many

How are you holding up sushi-wise? Room for another luxury fish parade? It’s been said recently that Melbourne might be nearing omakase saturation point. What a hilariously decadent problem to have!

Close observers of the form might recognise chef Jun Ha Park from his time at Punt Road sushi temple Aoi Tsuki. Kirishima is his and chef Yo Han Ji’s newborn, cooing its sweet song in Camberwell since May.

Fans might also recognise a couple of these precious morsels from Aoi Tsuki, most notably the abalone course. Gorgeously tender and cut like a rice terrace, it’s a knockout signature. There would be no abalone slander if they were all treated this well – and there would be no omakase fatigue if they were all this good.

Entering from the clatter of Camberwell Road, a dozen diners step through the vestibule of an unremarkable apartment block and sit down for their two-hour fish appointment. Why the omakase experience is routinely staged on godless thoroughfares is beyond me. But once you’re in, it’s all high craft and calm luxuries: 23 acts of service delivered by hand in perfect serenity.

We’ll get to the extraordinary fish later, but one of the first questions the omakase chef must address is how to accessorise Japan’s savoury egg custard dish, chawanmushi. Spanner crab? Caviar? Gold leaf and burnt butter? Park tops his simply with black truffle, setting his custard a degree looser than his contemporaries for a silkier finish. A fine start.

The abalone is every bit as good as I remember from Aoi Tsuki – plump, yielding and served over exceptionally good rice and a rich, iron-y sauce made from its liver.

It negates the need for the slightly tough duck course that follows, one of two dishes that don’t quite land, the other being the beef. I’m a sucker for blowtorched wagyu, but less so when it’s overwhelmed in 36-month-aged Comte and crowned with a miso-cured quail egg, the flavour of the beef retiring like Homer into the hedge.

But these are minor blemishes and, really, two out of 23 ain’t bad – even if 23 courses in two hours feels like two too many.

Cue the fish. Kingfish – aged for three days to gently repel the tooth – and tuna of various cuts and fat content are standout scenes from a rush of exemplary nigiri. A fillet of cured mackerel is rolled around rice, ginger and chives and sliced like a maki roll; sticky sweet prawns are topped with bracing sea urchin and wrapped in crisp nori. It’s all genuinely creative and disarmingly tasty.

After nine pieces of sushi comes another of Park’s signatures: a generous, grounding donabe claypot of shiitake-studded rice and miso-marinated black cod.

A velvety quenelle of yuzu sorbet, showing all that leathery, oily excellence of the skin, plays us out with easy grace.

In my mind, there’s always room for more exquisitely handled fish in serene, blonde-wood environments. The problem is these luxuries don’t come cheap; at $260 a head, this is once-in-a-blue-moon stuff for most of us.

But consider the elite fish brokers, the complex refrigeration and the international freight required to get the goods here in such exquisite nick, and I’m confident the value is there – especially when it’s all presented with this degree of creativity and perspective. And boy, that abalone.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.