Basement venue Sakura House offers late-night snacks, while Koda’s high-wire culinary spectacle offers creative cross-cultural dishes like lasagna gyoza, lobster ramen, and salmon wasabi tostada.
Diners can expect cross-cultural creations such as lasagna gyoza and rice-stuffed squid with yuzu emulsion as two new Japanese-inspired venues open within a few days of each other in Sydney.
Midnight basement hangout Sakura House It launched on Monday, November 17, just north of Hyde Park, with the kitchen open until 2 a.m.
Koda’s Highly wired culinary action will soon follow when Monopole’s former home opens in the CBD next week.
Nick Sherman, Sakura House’s executive chef, said the bar’s snack menu will remain true to Japanese fare, with some off-piste twists and turns.
“There is [Korean] “We have kimchi in one of our sauces,” Sherman said. “We’re not afraid to take flavors from different cultures.”
Sherman, who previously worked at the one-hat Cho Cho San Japanese restaurant in Potts Point, said Sydneysiders were always happy to try new or interesting dishes. For example, Sakura House’s opening menu stars dashi egg pudding with chicken gravy and Alaskan crab, and kombu butter corn. Co-owner Cynthia Lister said the rice-stuffed squid with yuzu emulsion was also a crowd favorite at the soft launch.
Sakura House, at 82-88 Elizabeth Street, is the second venture from Lister and business partner Evan Stroeve, who was named 2021 Australian Bartender of the Year. They opened The Waratah in Darlinghurst in 2023 before moving on to a late-night revival in the Sydney CBD.
It remains an important component of late-night dining at Sakura House. “The purpose of the menu is to discuss foods to eat while on a gasbag,” Sherman said.
At Koda, restaurateur Matt Yazbek is preparing for many food-related discussions. The venue opens on Tuesday, November 25, in the space previously occupied by Monopole, overlooking Australia Square. Italian-Japanese hybrid lasagna sauce is an example of this.
“We’ve actually been working on all these dishes for years,” said Yazbek, one of the early pioneers of modern Japanese venues in Sydney. He jointly opened a sushi train in Paddington and Toko restaurant in Surry Hills in 2000, moving to the CBD in 2022 after a 15-year run.
“In the early days of Paddington, people would look in and say, ‘What, are you eating raw fish?’ “They were saying,” he said. Yazbek agrees that Japanese food has left its mark on Sydney food culture over the last quarter of a century, just as Thai food did in the 1980s and 1990s.
But the increasing popularity of Japanese food meant Yazbek had to explore new dishes outside the Sydney-style izakaya he had 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 buffalo ranch sauce. Salmon, avocado and wasabi will suit Latin America served as a tostada.
Yazbek is eagerly waiting for the “lasagna” with sauce topped with bolognese and mozzarella cheese. They also tweaked a dish consisting of ham, cheese, mayonnaise, teriyaki and nori with the working title of “OMG onigiri.”
“People still love Toko’s food,” Yazbek said. “I think the izakaya style we introduced at the time was fresh and new, but everyone jumped on it.”
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