Minamishima, Melbourne: restaurant review
Years ago, while on assignment for a glossy that involved a weekend in Tokyo, I went to the market. You know which one. Tsukiji is the world’s most famous fish market and our host got us into the bizarre, alien inner sanctum of the tuna auction.
Afterwards we went to a fishmonger’s “stall” where a giant bluefin was put meticulously under the sword and scalpel of several men. Food perv Nirvana.
We watched for about 25 minutes and then, with nothing more than soy, ate freshly cut tuna. Silently, these craftsmen toiled as we watched, ate, admired their work and tools; 45 minutes later, as we began to leave, one of the tuna guys finally ventured a single word.
“Australia?”
“Yes,” I said. “Melbourne.” His eyes lit up. “I went … Box Hill TAFE.”
Sitting at the Minamishima counter gave me the same feeling of connection with something quintessentially, deeply Japanese. You may be in the backstreets of inner-city Richmond, but for a few hours all you think is nice thoughts about the Japanese, their culture and food. Their deep respect for tradition, purity, style, freshness and beauty.
The quirky, almost hidden location; the spare, organic elegance of a design palette restricted to dark stone and pale timber; the traditional getup of three chefs in white tunics, white shirts, black ties and white caps … It’s not affectation; it’s pure tradition and respect. For the food, the customer. They barely speak.
Minamishima is a sushi restaurant. Understand that. For your $150 omakase meal, you will get a beautiful Otways shiitake in kombu butter; a large-ish New Zealand clam steamed with sake; at some point you will get two stunning lobes of tempura puffer fish (we’re told) with yuzu salt; some fish broth with yuba (beancurd sheet); and a quirky dessert, like chocolate rice pudding with Japanese whisky ice cream or sweet potato cake with cherry blossom ice cream. Like everything here, there is an uncompromising aesthetic at play and unashamed appeal to the Japanese palate.
Mostly, you will eat very, very good made-to-order nigirizushi (hand-pressed sushi) and gunkanmaki, the hand-formed nori cylinder inside which is rice and something soft, like roe, that needs the seaweed to keep it in place.
The Japanese sushi counter is the original voyeuristic dining experience and even the blasé could not help but be impressed by the hybrid expression of technique and tradition conveyed. With an amazing knife, a blow torch and bare hands, Koichi Minamishima turns fish, a variety of seasonings and lightly clumped rice into outstanding examples of the genre. What we have here is a coming together of skills and a marketplace mature enough to pay for the quality produce a sushi master will work with.
For some, the succession of rice morsels will eventually pall. For some, it will be too much. Not me. I found the totality perfect.
Fifteen artful, clever but traditional examples of the master’s voice that may have reached its zenith with a whole, creamy, raw-but-dressed New Zealand scampi. Or possibly the amazingly scored raw calamari with lime, subtle chilli and grey salt, from Okinawa. Or maybe the lightly toasted, gelatinous flesh of a flounder’s “wing”, near the fin.
Or was it the intriguing texture/temperature game the chef played with a roll of almost-crisp room-temperature nori, warm rice and cold soy and sesame-dressed slices of firm, scallop-like taira-gai, or pen shell? It’s close-your-eyes stuff.
I could eat at gentle, elegant, respectful Minamishima once a month for the rest of my life. Was there a connection? It felt like it.
Address: 4 Lord Street, Richmond
Phone: (03) 9429 5180 Web: minamishima.com.au
Hours: Dinner Tue-Sat
Typical prices: Set price $150 per person
Summary: Uncompromising
Like this? Try … Kenzan, Melbourne; Yoshi, Sydney
Stars: 4 out of 5
Source: The Australian, John Lethlean, July 25th 2015
Originally published as: Minamishima, Melbourne: restaurant review
