Minamishima — Restaurant in Melbourne

Sorry about this folks, but the dining experience here was so poor, I wish I had been warned before going there, so I would like to help you out by briefly describing how poorly it panned out for our group.

Please don't be fooled by this establishment, it is long way from being a good Japanese restaurant. Our whole table was disappointed in the food and service at Minamishima. It's a bit of an embarrassment of a Japanese restaurant really and we all felt a bit betrayed by them really, food was average at best, the venue was dark and dingy, the music was some kind of unremarkable jazz/noise and was way too loud to be able to hear anything clearly.

FOOD, We go to restaurants for a lot of reasons and usually food is one of them... This was a real disappointment. Unfortunately, most of the food was not cooked fresh, it was prepared well in advance of the service, and heated up just before service (for the food which wasn't cold). It really misses the point of good Japanese food, which is prepared fresh. This food was not authentic at all, it couldn't be described as modern, just a poor example of food at a very expensive restaurant.

I would not recommend this to anyone wanting a good dining experience, it simply did not live up to modern expectations. Theres a lot of much better Japanese Restaurants around which have excellent service, it would pay to shop around a little.

After discussing some of the problems relating to the service, the shift manager was unapologetic and uninterested in discussing it all. It was not at all respectful.

The venue itself was dark and dingy with no consideration for Japanese style. It was tidy, but boring, I mean, there is basically no decor, there's no soft furnishings, artwork or theme to the place, . It wouldn't be considered as minimalist, rather it just looked cheap, perhaps unfinished. I've seen the pictures online, but thats facing the bar, turn around to where you eat and its a different story.

The staff mumbled and spoke so quietly that it was almost impossible to understand what the serves were. Considering they did not supply any menu, we could have been eating anything really. It was most strange actually. At any rate, the staff didn't have a full understanding of what the food was but seemed to rabbit on about the soy sauce being the invention of one of their cooks. The secret is out though, it's just regular soy sauce with a bit of miso paste stirred through it. You could do it yourself for a lot less!

PRICING I feel the restaurant was quite deceptive in the way they conducted themselves when it came to the cost of eating there. When making the booking, they said they have 2 sitting times in the evening, starting 6PM and starting 8PM. They indicated that there was a set menu but would not be drawn on what it was. Nor did they present any offer for the food and pricing whatsoever. The only time we found out was when the bill came. 6 people came in to around $1,400. Yes it was around $225 per person, then we all went out to dinner around the corner because the servings were embarrassingly small, every single one of us left starving. I'm not going to tell you how much the drinks were, if you want to go there after this review, I guess you'll find out about the drinks then.

Should have been a warning when we tried to book. In fact, it was very difficult to get them to answer the phone to make a booking!, Then they messed up the date with an SMS confirmation and it was impossible to make any change after that. They said we cant always answer the phone because we're busy! I guess none of us will go there again, thats just how we saw it, maybe it will be different for you, but you're welcome for...

Minamishima has always been my bucket list omakase restaurant in Melbourne. Last month a milestone was reached and we finally decided to go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel as amazing as we imagined it would be. I guess there is a reason why several people said it was going downhill, and we regret not trying this out a few years earlier. Apparently, for $295 pp menu, you could get better food and experience in other omakase restaurant.

Service: not much to like. It is a very capacious restaurant which can roughly sit around 50 people. Therefore, for some reason, all the waitress seem to be in a rush. The serving style is more like “serve you the food, read the content, and leave”. Not caring about whether we have any question. There was one time the waitress just put down the food and almost left if her colleague didn’t stop her from going away. And I have to be honest, some of the waitress’ English is not good enough for us to fully understand our food. At the end of the experience, no one asked us how we think about the food, which dish do we like the most like the other omakase restaurant did. Before we start eating, the waitress mentioned one of the special is truffle with Wagyu which cost $18, and specified that it may run out anytime of the night, if we want to order better be earlier. We thought it was some sashimi style or small piece of Wagyu with a sprinkle of truffle. At the end we thought that we could give it a try. The waitress didn’t mention at all that the truffle with Wagyu actually means a few slice of truffle added on the Wagyu that we have had in our Omakase course, so when we order at the end, it will be $18 of Truffle and $35 of Wagyu. When we see the dish it didn’t feel great because we’ve already had the Wagyu and wouldn’t wanna try again if we knew what it was. And the waitress didn’t mention Wagyu price is $35. The whole experience didn’t feel warm and welcome, instead it felt more commercial and “show me ya money”.

By the way, only water that does cost anything is tap water so be aware if you order still water that is $5 pp.

Food: there are some impressive dishes. For example the fish with persimmons is perfectly balanced; foie gras chawanmushi is fatty and rich which I really enjoyed; there is an aburi covered in a transparent kelp that brings the whole ocean into your mouth; and the tea chocolate taste nice too.

However, for a 295 pp set menu, I also didn’t expect to see Anago (salt water eel) in the menu. I mean, don’t you think you can at least use unagi (fresh water eel, richer in flavour)? Not to mention the rice under which feels uncooked. And they use Kagoshima Wagyu instead of the better Wagyu like Kobe, Matsusaka or Omi. Also, we don’t like that many of the nigiri sushi are grilled. There are a lot of time the chef just put fish on rice, sprinkle some salt, and use the torch to grill the top. At first I did enjoy the smoky flavour of fish but when I had the third grilled fish, we were really hope the chef to stop. When we go for sushi I think most people wanted the fresh taste rather than smoky taste.

Atmosphere: it was really nice interior, but we were seated in front of a sink! That means almost no interaction with chefs at all, and all our photos have a sink in it. I really didn’t appreciate our seat.

All in all, I am glad that I crossed this one out of my bucket list, and will not come back again to...

Watch out: If you are ever sick and need to cancel on the night after 6pm - they will not answer your calls and will BLACK LIST you.

I was an avid fan of Koichi san since his Kenzan days. I always thought his sushi was the best in Melbourne. Needless to say my first Minamishima experience last year with my partner was pretty fantastic. We didn’t mind the $900 bill at the end for two people as it was a special occasion. I have also referred the restaurant to many of my friends and relatives who have also had similarly enjoyable experiences.

Sometime last year, my partner made a booking to take his mother to Minamishima for dinner at 8pm. Unfortunately, the ramen he ate for lunch made him feel quite ill towards the late afternoon.

He decided to wait a little while as these things can settle down with digestion. He went to rest in exhaustion and around 6pm, I tried to call the restaurant to let them know that the dinner appointment needed to be cancelled.

I called for hours to speak to someone at the restaurant (phone ringing and ringing with no voicemail). Around 8.30pm the restaurant called and, having woken up, my partner answered the call.

Now, I had tried to call them every 5 minutes or so up until this point to no avail. My partner was aware of this and after apologising profusely, he asked why the phone was not being answered. The lady simply answered “we don’t answer phone calls during service hours” and ended the call.

This week, my partner called to enquire about a dinner reservation for my birthday. They swiftly took the booking and confirmed the reservation for 6pm this Friday. A moment later, they called back to cancel the reservation and advised him that they could not accept any reservations from him as he had been blacklisted as a no-show.

We thought about booking under my name instead but decided against it as we felt that we could not enjoy the experience anymore.

Fair enough if we had not tried our utmost best to contact the restaurant as soon as we knew that the appointment could not be honoured. It is a very popular restaurant that many want to dine in and it is a loss to their business if they turn away guests under the impression that they cannot take any more guests. This was not, however, one of those cases.

I also note that there is nothing on their website or anywhere that notes this unconventional practice of not answering calls after 6pm. In fact, the restaurant does not even have a simple cancellation policy.

If they wanted the reservations honoured without fail, they should take upfront credit card transactions.

There are, of course, genuine circumstances like my partner’s case that may prevent attendance but the restaurant could work out a reasonable cancellation policy to counter different scenarios - eg. charge a cancellation fee, provide a single chance to rebook within 3 days, etc.

We would much rather have been charged a cancellation fee than being insultingly banned for life from this restaurant. We would have happily paid a $100 cancellation fee.

In short, the food at minamishima is authentic and a cut above the rest. Sadly, however, it’s amateur hour at their management desk, trying to run the restaurant like it’s Jiro and failing badly at it.

We are bitterly disappointed by this incident and will be taking our...