First Look: Say “Itadakimasu” for Your Meal at the Sandoitchi Team’s New Onigiri Bar

My 2026 prediction is this: for all the Sandoitchi fans in Sydney, there will be just as many devotees to its new next-door neighbour. At Itadakimasu, instead of fruit-and-cream-filled and katsu sandos or lunchtime bowls, you’ll find made-to-order onigiri that arrive warm, snacky side dishes and generous set menus.

“Always a dream for us to open this shop,” says Pureephat “Bas” Kraikangwan, who owns Sandoitchi and Itadakimasu with his partner Saowanit “Ying” Boonrod.

As you enter the skinny slice – most recently a clothing store – a dozen onigiri are lined up under the glass counter. Tuna and yuzu, crispy prawn, grilled scallop, unagi and tomago, an Okinawa-stye “taco” number (Mexican cheese, nori, crispy corn, grilled veggies and corn chips for crunch) and more are all here.

The couple run the neighbouring venues together, overseeing the kitchen and floor. They’re helped by the hole cut into the wall between the two kitchens – if you’re seated at the bar you’ll spy hands passing dishes back and forth freely. Things are fried at Sandoitchi, then sent through the window.

It could be salt and vinegar eggplant karaage or fish katsu (a pair of whiting fillets) topped with creamy egg salad and house tartare. There’s a cabbage salad revved up with smoked katsuobushi (smoked dried fish), and oysters dressed with wasabi vinegar, too.

The menu references regions all over Japan, with the three generous set menus zeroing in on one each.

“We are trying to bring everything to Australia,” Kraikangwan says. “In Japan, every part of the [country] eats differently because of the local ingredients, because of way they eat, because of the way they cook. We have been travelling to every part of Japan and sourcing the best ingredients, [working out] what is good to bring on the dish.”

The $32.50 Tokyo set includes both a Wagyu and salmon onigiri, along with egg-topped fish katsu, miso soup with pork and veggies, sesame-dressed leaves and a kobachi holding bright house pickles. The $27.50 Okinawa set is vego: taco rice and mushroom onigiri, egg-topped eggplant katsu, tofu miso soup, and the same salad and pickles.

The Hokkaido is the set Kraikangwan is most eager for people to try. “If you’ve been there, everyone loves talking about the king crab and Hokkaido scallop. It’s one of the greatest seafoods in the world because of the temperature in Japan. And yes, we bring that whole concept into a set – it contains the great seafood in Hokkaido.”

Those pearly scallops are grilled then stuffed into onigiri, and spanner crab (the closest the team can get to Japan’s crustaceans) is stuffed into another, with the katsu, salad, miso and pickles in attendance too.

Nights are coming too, so the drinks list – where sakés and Japanese beers join highballs, yuzu saké spritzes, ume Martinis and Japanese wines – will be put to good use. During the day, order matcha, hojicha, cold brew or house sodas (go for the salted plum, sweetened with brown sugar).

The one thing the team wants is for their guests to add “itadakimasu” to their vocabulary. It’s a word that’s been said for centuries all over Japan.

“We say that out loud before eating, as a culture, which means ‘thank you to the earth, to the sea, to the food, to the farmers’ – everything that creates us the dish. Just as a way to [be] respectful to the meal,” Kraikangwan says. “It would be great if everyone would come and say the word out loud. It’s a little word for Japanese [people], but it’s very meaningful.”

Itadakimasu
2/113–115 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Hours:
Tue to Fri 10.30am–3pm
Sat & Sun 9.30am–3.30pm

@itadakimasu_onigiribar