Inside Japanese snack stalwart Izakaya Den.Scott McNaughton15/20
Japanese$$$$
Has it really been that long? Riffling through the Good Food annals reveals 2009 was the year Izakaya Den began leading Melbourne astray,geographically speaking at least (no,not the door to the left,the staircase down towards the clothes shop,then a sharp left through the black curtains and bravely onwards into the hip hop-soundtracked gloom).
When Simon Denton,Takashi Omi and Miyuki Nakahara opened their sexy haunt in the basement of Russell Street's Hero building,they introduced a new term to the city's food lexicon. As every review at the time noted,an izakaya is the Japanese answer to the pub,a place of small plates and big drinks. But perhaps the late,legendary Los Angeles restaurant critic Jonathan Gold said it best when he called an izakaya"the perfect kind of food for people with short attention spans".
Its booming success led me to commit to print that 2010 would be the year of the izakaya (bold!),but Izakaya Den was always very much a new-wave iteration – less pub,more polished.
Go-to dish:Chicken kara-age.Scott McNaughtonAfter some recent pandemic-led missteps (a brief flirtation with the name Izakaya Den 2029 anda similarly short-lived move to set menu only),it has reached a healthy middle age,albeit minus some of the pop-cultural accoutrements that made it so compellingly"now"when it opened (vale,sinister Yoshitomo Nara cartoon-printed glasses).
Little has changed. Insulated from the street above in its own hermetic world,Izakaya Den plays by its own rules. There's no"Irasshaimase!"chorus on arrival,for instance. Just a polite taking of jackets and a pointing to the bag hooks hanging under the long flame-seared bar separating kitchen crew from diners.
The bunker-like room is long,narrow and dim. The elongating mirror at the end will make two out of every three people do a double take. The visible industrial pipes and plumbing accoutrements of a 15-storey apartment building will still make you feel like you're in a Fritz Lang movie,in a good way.
Tuna tataki on a thick blanket of spicy sauce.Scott McNaughtonAnd the tuna tataki ($34) will please you in the manner that only the simple yet magical combination of just-seared pucks of firm-fleshed albacore on a thick blanket of spicy sauce – like the love child of gribiche and fermented chilli mayo – will do.
Former Ezard head chef Jarrod Di Blasi took charge of the kitchen when the Den's Japanese chefs flew home on the wings of the pandemic. His menu is very much of its place while evidencing – subtly,but assuredly – the classical technique and preoccupation with Asian ingredients and influences he honed in his eight years at Flinders Lane.
Respectful but firmly next-gen Izakaya Den dishes include the almost-impossible-not-to-order Murray cod with"tasty butter". It tops out the menu at a very un-izakaya-like $54 but justifies the hit. A fat wodge of the luxe fish (light,sweet,perfectly steamed) lolls under a Nipponese beurre blanc,a busy but delicate balance between the likes of chives,parsley and gherkins plus sea urchin,wasabi and mirin. It's drinkably good.
Taiyaki with sour jam and "donut" ice-cream.Scott McNaughton We also have the long,lonely lockdowns to thank for Di Blasi perfecting the process for his chicken kara-age ($18) – four fried wingettes in a batter so startlingly crisp it's like eating fine crystal stemware. The process is too lengthy to detail here but involves potato starch,a marinade and 48 hours.
The end result is that,together with its funk-adjacent yuzu kosho mayo,it's the best fried chicken in Melbourne (no accusations of hyperbole will be entertained – and now the dish has been released from its set-menu prison it's calling a siren song across the CBD for anyone inclined towards a feed of crunchy chook and an Orion on tap).
On the more delicate side of the ledger,witness frills of ox tongue ($24) briefly flirting with the charcoal grill before hooking up with a sweet dab of spring onion mince.
Even more ethereal,impossibly tissue-thin slices of interleaved kingfish need nothing more than a dab of Tasmanian wasabi and a skim through house soy sauce ($28).
On the gutsier side,still-crunchy broccoli and gummily interesting slivers of lightly poached wood ear mushroom ($15) in a sesame dressing ("goma-ae") make a good case for an all-purpose side,while octopus salad,a rice-vinegared tower with cucumber,tomato and wakame ($28),adds its own light and shade.
Dessert? Normally I don't,if I can help it,but the overdose-level kawaii (cuteness) of the taiyaki ($18) is an addiction that may be hard to shake. A fish-shaped waffle press (OK,it's the red sea bream,trainspotters) plus batter,sour jam and"donut"ice-cream paying homage to Di Blasi's affection for the Queen Vic Market's American doughnut van add up to an elevated ice-cream sandwich. For bonus points,the sticky,eating-with-hands fun nails the freewheeling spirit of the izakaya.
Which leads to this week's question. If you feel the need to analyse an izakaya,is it really an izakaya? That's a Zen koan in food form,but Izakaya Den has always been a definition-stretcher as well as a mood-enhancer. Thirteen years on,let's simply call it Melbourne's own izakaya,and be thankful its second act is well worth the ticket.
Vibe Relaxed and cool,with aBlade Runner frisson
Go-to dish Chicken kara-age,$18
DrinksCover all bases,from an excellent selection of sake and umeshu to Japanese beers and a pithy wine list with plenty of interest from home and away
CostAbout $200 for two,plus drinks