Ishizuka

Ishizuka sits below a Bourke Street laneway in the Melbourne CBD, its entrance next to sister restaurant Oden. Only 16 seats wrap the counter inside a room designed by Russell & George as a light, airy cocoon crowned by a huge white dome evoking a Japanese lantern. The restaurant serves a single seasonal Kaga kaiseki degustation and holds two hats in the Age Good Food Guide 2026.

The kitchen was founded by chef Tomotaka Ishizuka, who previously ran Koko at Crown and cooked at Kisume; the current seasonal menu is led by executive chef Katsuji Yoshino. The multi-course kaiseki is priced at A$315 per person and changes with what the market brings — as the chef has put it, the sashimi fish is chosen day to day based on what the fishmonger delivers.

Drinks are treated as seriously as the food. Ishizuka took Three Glasses at Australia's Wine List of the Year Awards 2024, and its beverage pairings run in parallel: a wine match from A$250 and a dedicated non-alcoholic pairing from A$90 per person, poured course-by-course from house juices, teas and infusions rather than off-the-shelf substitutes. That course-timed zero-proof pairing lets a non-drinking guest follow the same progression as the table without compromise.

Dinner runs Wednesday to Sunday from 5:30pm, and with just 16 seats booking ahead is essential. Find it on Instagram at @ishizuka_australia.

The pairing is printed, and the price is the proof. Ishizuka's own menu lists wine matches from an additional $250 per person and non-alcoholic matches from $90 per person — two lines in the same place on the same card. A restaurant that prints an alcohol-free price has committed to producing it on a quiet Tuesday as well as a full Saturday, and it removes the small social tax of having to ask the waiter what might be possible.

Kaiseki is also unusually well suited to the format. The menu moves through many small, precisely seasoned courses in a fixed order, which is exactly the structure a drinks flight is built to track, and Japanese cooking already has a deep non-alcoholic pantry to draw on — cold-brewed and hot teas, roasted grains, dashi-adjacent savoury infusions and fruit vinegars. The room itself is a quiet basement dining room seating a small number of guests, so booking well ahead is essential and the pairing is best requested when you reserve.