The setting is calm and elegant, with blue tones, and textural tile and wood finishes. There’s jazz playing and scents of rice, crisp nori and sake. Five small tables face the bar and kitchen. You might expect omakase or kaiseki, but the centrepiece of chef Hiroshi Uchiyama’s $145 set meal is a colourful platter of 11 small dabs of food for you to tackle as you wish.

This is temaki sushi, a style that sees diners given seaweed squares, a bowl of rice and a tray of fillings for self-assembly. Take that road, or you can simply deliver them to your mouth by chopstick.

A lotus root crisp is piled with raw kingfish and garlic chips, and grilled eel sits over a cube of sweet omelette, with plenty of ingredients coming from owner Allan Greenfield’s farm. At either end? Appetisers, noodles and mochi. Special stuff to leave you dreaming of Japan.

Good to know: Like this? Try sister businesses Onigiri To Go (a few doors away) and Onigiri on Degraves Street, and look out for the team’s new soba noodle bar.

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