contemporary japanese cuisine

Saké Brisbane is getting set to open at Eagle Street Pier in October. In the meantime, Executive Chef Shaun Presland and Head Chef Shinichi Maeda are working up the menu and look forward to impressing local fans of contemporary Japanese cuisine...

For updates, join our mailing list.

We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Sake Restaurant is such a hit at The Rocks, it is about to be replicated in Brisbane. Sake will open near the river in Brisbane about October and while talented sushi man Shaun Presland will oversee both restaurants as executive chef, the Brisbane operation has lured Shinichi Maeda as head chef. Maeda is currently the chef at Wassabi Bar & Restaurant in Noosa. Wasabi is one of the first ports of call for visiting chefs and foodies, and Maeda's signing is a big boost for Sake's northern aspirations.

Remember sushi before it was food-court fodder for the CBD lunch crush? Sashimi before it lost its shimmer? There was a season, now only referenced in the early office worker haiku, when the cocktails in the city's Japanese restaurants weren't more interesting than the food. I think I'm experiencing something that in Japan they call "mono no aware": a sort of melancholy sensitivity to fading beauty and the impermanence of things. So what's the answer to the dumbing down of Japanese dining in Sydney?

Sake at The Rocks might be one. Owner John Szangolies is repising a successful formula he developed with the Bavarian Bier Cafe chain. Like a postcard of Mount Fuji, Sake conveys a notion of Japan but from a distance, stopping short of eratz cheesiness.

Built into the cavernous expanse of a herritage Rocks wool store, Sake stretches over two tiers of izakaya-inspired communal tables and louvred private booths, a sushi bar, a tatami- style sunken dining area and four private dining rooms. A few hand-lettered sake barrels and a spring-blossom motif feature wall get the message across without shouting "theme park".

Chef Shaun Preslan (ex-Unkai, sushi-e, Nobu Atlantis) spent 10 years sharpening his skills as a sushi master. Its all about the knife manoeuvres, the selection of fish, the priming of the fish in different seasons, the cooking of the rice. Its a state of mind, too. Preslan has picked up some riffs from the enigatic Pac Rim fusion patriarch Nobu Matsuhisa so dont be suprised to see ceviche, jalapeno and salsa on the menu.

Staff know what they're on about as well. Urbane manager Rupert Sakora has drilled them on each dish and how to get the most out of the bathmat-sized folding menu. Importantly, his team can reduce your sake stress by suggesting the best sake and food pairings.

Tonight, I'm with the fabulous Jazz Diva, who has been robotically murmuring "deep fried chicken" since we arrived. She dismisses our chicken karaage, served with a salsa and some South American sauces ($15), as "not evil enough". The diva's right, of course - there's a mysterious borderland seperating good fried chicken from great. This little chickadee's too polite. BUt the beef tataki ($15) is fine, the cold, thinly sliced beef enhanced by the high quality house sake ($3), a versatile, medium-weight junmai brand called Kozaemon from venerable Japanese Nakashima.

We've been snacking in the dark messanine bar but now we're en route to a well-lit booth on the busy lower level, the traditional chant of "Irasshaimase!" (welcome!) bursting from the open kitchen. The room hums with a Rocks crowd: city salarymen with loosened ties, bemussed tourists and hard-core Presland fans from his sushi-e days.

Our cold starters on rustic ceramic plates arrive quickly: pristine sashimi of Hirmasa kingfish precisely hand-sliced with a zippy dressing of jalapeno, soy and yuzu ($20); the chef's signature soft-shell crab make roll, cut for two to shar ($17); and cooling tofu with ginger and spring onions ($9). All good but thrilling united with a full-boddied, nutty Kozaemon called Banshuu Ymanakanishiki ($6).

Sake is an essential element of dining here. There are plans to expand the list of premium junmai sake this year by including the super-premium daiginjo category. A few will be available by the glass. I'm guessing these top regional brews, which demand subtle food pairings, will push the kitchen to take a few more creative risks.

Until then, the mains and desserts seem like a distraction from the sushi and sashimi. Still, we're loving our four sweet grilled scampi, seasoned with green-tea salt ($32), matched to a sake with a subtle tropical-fruit notes, called Ecchuu Gohyakumangoku ($5).

Sake is fun. On a scale of satisfaction, I reckon it sits somewhere between Wagamamma and the more Zen-like Azuma or Yoshii. For all you office poets suffering in the CBD, it might be just the cure for those bento-box blues.

Shaun Presland is as Japanese as you can get without actually being born in the shadow of Mount Fuji. After two years in a purist ryokan in Yamagata in the mid-1990s learning both the language and the cooking, he returned to Australia to work with distinguished sushi masters at Unkai at ANA (now Shangri-La), later opening the Hemmes family's elegant Sushi e at The Establishment before being nicked by Nobu Matsuhisa for Nobu Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Now he is back, teaming up with long-serving Sydney restaurateur John Szangolies, owner of Lowenbrau Keller and the Bavarian Bier Cafes, to launch an ambitious new restaurant project in The Rocks, just by the Argyle Steps. Housed in a heritage-listed building in what used to be Reds, Saké feels part rustic drinking tavern and part moody cocktail-fuelled club, thanks to some sympathetic design work by local team Luchetti Krelle.