Minamishima

Down a quiet Richmond street, behind an unshowy frontage, is a sushi counter widely spoken of as the finest in the country. The style is Edomae, and the room treats it with something close to reverence: hushed, low-lit, the pace set entirely by the chef working an arm's length away. Only a pair of diners sit at the counter itself for the full ceremony; larger groups take the adjoining dining room. Either way the meal is omakase, a long, deliberate procession of nigiri, the fish sliced, shaped, torched and brushed to order, threaded through with cooked courses that draw on the techniques of Japanese haute cuisine. Seasonality governs everything. The kitchen frames the evening as a passage between the oceans of Japan and Australia, and the fish is treated accordingly, much of it flown in from Tokyo's market and handled with a precision that borders on austere. This is not a place for grazing or for volume; there is a single sitting's worth of attention on offer and it is directed at you. For anyone who cares about sushi as a discipline rather than a menu, it remains the Melbourne benchmark, and arguably the national one.