A one-time Daylesford favourite, Kazuki’s is bringing small-town charm to Carlton with clever cooking and no shortage of technical prowess, writes MICHAEL HARDEN.
Do not neglect the snacks at Kazuki’s. They may be an optional add-on to the set-course menus, but it would be foolish to bypass them. Do so, and you’d miss the thin crisp of kipfler potato topped with cultured cream and sea urchin roe. Or a Goolwa pipi, served cool and raw and wearing nothing but a subtle hint of soy and wispy strands of pickled ginger.
The kitchen may well send out a Moreton Bay bug dumpling sitting on pickled cucumbers under a cloud of foamed sake butter as a little extra, but the long crisp of fried nori topped with cod-roe paste, salmon caviar marinated in soy and sake, and light sprinklings of sea-lettuce powder, that’s only on the snacks menu. So too a chicken-liverparfait profiterole filled with a jam made from dried plums cooked in umeshu and dusted with deep-purple plum powder.
Order the snacks. It’s almost shocking to find food of this calibre and price range in this location, a stretch of Lygon Street best known for red gingham tablecloths, giant laminated menus and often boisterous crowds.
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