Kazukis

Kazuki's is a Japanese-European fine-dining restaurant on Lygon Street in Carlton, Melbourne. Chef Kazuki Tsuya owns it with his wife, Saori.

Tsuya comes from Akita in northern Japan. The couple opened the first Kazuki's in Daylesford in 2011 and moved it to the city in 2018, leaving a new Japanese restaurant, Sakana, on the old Daylesford site. The restaurant has held hats from the Good Food Guide for more than a decade, and the guide has most lately given it two. Gourmet Traveller has called it a slow restaurant on a fast street.

The room seats about 30 under high ceilings in soft grey-blue tones, and plates arrive on charcoal-colored crockery imported from Italy. Set menus run from a few courses to seven, and each plate tends to focus on a single ingredient. The kitchen leans on hyper-seasonal Victorian produce alongside selected imports, and flavors such as tamarind, galangal and finger lime turn up beside Japanese seasoning.

House-made sourdough comes with a pitch-black seaweed butter, and snacks include a raw pipi in the shell and a chicken liver choux. A dumpling of Moreton Bay bug comes in a buttery sauce of sake with ponzu, and lightly cured kingfish is dressed with white soy and buttermilk. Aged duck is paired with radicchio and blackberry, with shiitake on the side. The wine, sake and spirits list runs to many pages, with a section of Japanese whisky. Moving from a country town to a busy city street did not change the pace of the meal, which still unfolds slowly over several courses.