Sydney lands two new Japanese-inspired spots, including a bar by The Waratah crew

Diners can expect cross-cultural creations such as lasagne gyoza and rice-stuffed calamari with yuzu emulsion when two new Japanese-inspired venues launch in Sydney within days of each other.

Late-night basement venue Sakura House launched on Monday, November 17 just north of Hyde Park, with the kitchen open until 2am.

Koda’s high-wire culinary act will follow soon after when it opens next week in the CBD in the former home of Monopole.

Sakura House head chef Nick Sherman said the bar’s snacky menu will stick to Japanese food, with a few of its own off-piste twists and turns.

“There’s [Korean] kimchi in one of our sauces,” Sherman said. “We aren’t afraid to borrow flavours from different cultures.”

Sherman, who previously worked at the one-hat Cho Cho San Japanese restaurant at Potts Point, said Sydneysiders were always happy to try new or interesting dishes. Chicken gyoza and a dashi egg custard with Alaskan crab and kombu butter corn star on Sakura House’s opening menu, for example. Rice-stuffed calamari with yuzu emulsion was also the crowd favourite at the soft launch, said co-owner Cynthia Litster.

Sakura House, at 82-88 Elizabeth Street, is the second venture from Litster and business partner Evan Stroeve, who was named Australian Bartender of the Year in 2021. They opened The Waratah in Darlinghurst in 2023, before jumping in on the late-night venue resurgence in the Sydney CBD.

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Late-night dining remains a big component at Sakura House. “The goal for the menu is for it to be discussed – food to eat while you’re having a gas bag,” Sherman said.

At Koda, restaurateur Matt Yazbek is prepared for plenty of discussion about the food. The venue opens on Tuesday, November 25 overlooking Australia Square, in the site formerly occupied by Monopole. Its Italian-Japanese hybrid dish of lasagne gyoza is a case in point.

“We’ve actually been working on all these dishes for years,” said Yazbek, an early pioneer of modern Japanese venues in Sydney. He jointly opened a sushi train in Paddington in 2000 and Toko restaurant in Surry Hills, which relocated to the CBD in 2022 after a 15-year run.

“Back in the early days in Paddington, people used to look in and say ‘what, you eat raw fish?’,” he said. Yazbek agreed that the past quarter of a century has seen Japanese food etch itself on the Sydney food landscape in the same way Thai food did in the 1980s and ’90s.

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But the growing ubiquitousness of Japanese food meant Yazbek had to explore new dishes away from the Sydney-style izakaya he pioneered at Toko.

“Japanese is clean food for a good mood,” he said. Koda will serve lobster ramen, cheese toasties with furikake, and tofu fingers with a buffalo ranch sauce. Salmon, avocado and wasabi will lean in on Latin America, served as a tostada.

Yazbek is excited about the “lasagne” of gyoza topped with bolognese and mozzarella. They have also fine-tuned a dish of ham, cheese, mayo, teriyaki and nori with a working title of “OMG onigiri”.

“People still love the food at Toko,” Yazbek said. “I think the izakaya style we introduced was fresh and new then, but everyone has jumped on it.”