Not many of us could work with our parents. Fewer still could cook alongside them in a tiny, high-pressure kitchen next to a wall of incredibly sharp knives. But Momo and Raita Noda aren’t most people.
Over the weekend, the father-and-son duo opened R by Raita Noda in Redfern’s shiny new Wunderlich Lane. Raita (who previously ran omakase spot Raita Noda Chef’s Kitchen and 200-seater Ocean Room) and his son and sous-chef Momo work side by side, treating the 15 guests who sit in a circle around the kitchen to a three-hour, 10-course dining experience.
But despite all clues to the contrary, this isn’t an omakase restaurant. And with Raita widely recognised as opening one of Australia’s first omakase restaurants, Rise in 2000, we’ll take his word for it.
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SIGN UP“Just recently it’s become so popular,” Momo tells Broadsheet. “There’s no borderline of [what is or isn’t an omakase], so it could be fine dining or it could be some casual Japanese takeaway shop saying ‘omakase’ for the lunch set-menu. The word itself just lost meaning in a way.”
Instead, they’re calling R by Raita Noda a “theatre dining” experience, a term they came up with after guests compared watching the pair in the kitchen to watching a play.
When Broadsheet took a seat for the first service, the pair delivered on that promise of drama across 10 courses (or acts).
The stage is set with a bold fit-out from architect Koichi Takada, who designed the small Redfern space to echo a rainy Tokyo night. To enter, you pull back two curtains of alternating black and silver chains. The ceiling is a dimpled mirror designed to look like a skylight during a storm. The restaurant’s black-resin horseshoe counter shimmers like a midnight lake.
The cast is tight. There’s no staff except for Raita and Momo (although they’re planning to hire one more chef). Father and son flit around the kitchen in perfect harmony: one pipes, the other tweezes; one sears, the other slices. It’s a scene they’ve choreographed to perfection, cleaning as they go and pouring drinks from their list of 300 wines, 70 whiskies and 30 sakés.
Act one – cannonball jellyfish, papaya, pickled fruit and tomato consommé – is served in a bowl balanced on a jar of glowing water beads. Act two (a “finger snack” of paradise prawn tartare) comes next. There’s then a rice cracker made from congee topped artfully with John Dory, fennel, seaweed, roe and a yuzu calamansi cream, dotted with decorative flowers.
Act four is a storm shell clam from New Zealand with a salad of nasturtium and pistachios. It continues on and on, with sashimi served on custom Perspex stairs, “uni ravioli” and zingy claws of Singapore chilli crab (which Momo picks as his favourite).
At act eight, we – the audience – are handed small simmering pots of grapeseed oil and a box filled with sushi-grade Wagyu and raw vegetables. We fry it then drag our bites through a rich and spicy sauce.
For act nine, Raita slices fish on a huge butcher’s block with surgical precision, handing each to his guests one at a time. It’s this intimacy that encouraged him to move away from big dining rooms.
“I definitely prefer small formats,” he says. “I can see the customers’ reaction and perception. I can cook right in front of them and be confident to send the product out.”
The finale is a mango confection. Your final sip of saké and you roll out, the curtains closing on your three-hour odyssey.
R by Raita Noda
2 Baptist Street, Redfern
0451 068 815
Hours:
Tue to Sat 7pm–11pm
One 7pm sitting
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