Kura ByronBay

Up a flight of stairs off a laneway behind Byron's best-known pub, this small Japanese room takes the izakaya at its word, a bar and kitchen built for grazing and drinking rather than formal dining. The name borrows from the traditional storehouse used to protect what is valuable, and the owner has furnished the space in that spirit, hanging art and design pieces so the effect lands somewhere between an izakaya and a gallery. The cooking leans on what the Northern Rivers and the nearby coast can supply: fresh local seafood and produce, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options woven through rather than tacked on. Ramen is a serious concern here, the list running deep through shio, spicy miso, several tonkotsu and paitan variations and a mushroom-based bowl for the plant-eaters. It keeps unusual hours, dinner Thursday to Monday, and when the shutters come down the kitchen passes to a ramen-and-rice-bowl offshoot run by one of its own cooks, so the space rarely sits idle. The result is a considered, personal little venue, more interested in the details of broth and provenance than in the noise of the town below, and worth the climb off the lane to find.