Tiny: check. Serious price-tag: check. Windowless: check. Highly detailed Ts and Cs for the bookings: check. It trades in a familiar cavalcade of high-cost sea proteins for high net worth customers, but Aoi Tsuki is different. Fun, even, the kind that comes from seeing chefs really enjoy themselves as they place each morsel directly from their hand to your plate.

There’s deftness and subtlety in the dishes preceding the sushi - a crab custard of striking delicacy, slivers of raw hapuka bathed in ponzu. But wow, that nigiri. Get a load of the fine scoring on the fish, the cut specific to each species.

Savour that perfect ageing of A-grade local seafood (whiting, kingfish, squid), and also the less local (swordfish, tuna, snapper). And is this Melbourne’s best rice? Aoi Tsuki is far from cheap, but very close to best in class, nationwide.

Best for: Top-dollar omakase adventuring.

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