Y14 Japanese Seafood Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

Pro: good presentation of food, which was reasonable quality. I would give it about 3.5!5 based on what we thought it could be. Con: little engagement due to phone-based ordering, lack of variety of fish, odd choice of dishes that didn’t inspire interest…. Not great value.

This had the promise of being a great Japanese restaurant in the SE of Melbourne, and to be honest the food is quite good, and well presented. However, there are few things that stops this being memorable (for the right reasons).

Firstly if you haven’t been here before, don’t believe their website photos (they are excellent at providing a very misleading impression that this is classier than it is). Our experience was sitting out (on a warm March night) outside being dripped on by an overhead sign. We moved tables 3 times (admittedly they were v accommodating).

The thing that feels most jarring is the dependence on using your phone to effectively order online from your table… which means you are encouraged to constantly grab your phone - which in my book is a culinary sin. It would be better to have their own device, but perhaps this is Covid thing, or just cost saving.

Also, it means you are asked to provide phone/email details to eat there - and unless you want to provide their website with a record of your credit card, you have to enter your credit card every single time you order something…also, they have staff walking up and down - but they aren’t waiters - they just serve food (thanks to the phone based service).

The food is good - but this is also why it gets 3 stars. For a seafood-based restaurant, it’s amazing to me that they essentially just provide either salmon or kingfish (the latter being not the tastiest of fish) for most of their sushi/sashimi. The platter which should be their signature dish was competent, but quite unsatisfying… the problem we had was that after the platter, there was nothing on their menu that enticed us - or even intrigued us to try. The drink choice was also poor - my wife had to make do with a bottled lemon-lime-bitters… and very few alcoholic options (if you don’t like Asahi beers)

In the end, as a PAYG restaurant we just left -leaving us feeling like we were doing takeaway at someone else’s house (while they weren’t home). Maybe this is a post-Covid concept to reduce interaction with people, but it left us feeling like we should have...

My friend and I visited this place on 23/11/2024 around 5:30 pm the place looked pretty empty but they refused to give us a table and asked us to sit in the bar area, despite of it we ordered food (our mistake) and again requested one of the crew to see if we can get a table because we were clearly able to book a table online for a 6:30pm slot around 5:45pm . The guy refused to give us a table mentioning it’s pretty “booked out” however in this same period there was a walk-in who got a table without any arguments. We were clearly able to see there were plenty of tables that were available but how sad that they were okay with us cancelling the order and refund the money but provide a table for 2 , we understand the concept of “RESERVATION” but we also understand based on the situation and good customer service that things can be manageable (which in this scenario was pretty much manageable) , we were not gonna stay there for 3-4 hours and make it hard for other people who had their “reservation”, it was just a matter of an hour and to be honest it was very much manageable to provide us a table at that point in time (we didn’t request something absurd!) . It gave me such a trauma to see such inconsiderate behaviour. Maybe the place is great for food or ambiance but they failed being a good human being! We had to cancel our order and we walked out :) Thanks for such “amazing”...

Well prepared delicious food with good quality ingredients. Definitely recommend.

We ordered the mixed sushi and sashimi platter, and the miso eggplant. Together with two beers and two mixed drinks, dinner came to around $135 for the meal incl tip.

The eggplant was perfectly cooked while the miso was generous and not overly salty.

The platter included: two types of sashimi (salmon and king fish); a couple of king prawns, a couple of dressed fresh oysters, a couple of seared scallops in shell, a couple of seared salmon sushi, and three types of sliced sushi rolls.

Everything was fresh and delicious, and there was an excellent balance of fish to rice. There were slices of fresh radish and cucumber, as well as seaweed on the plate to freshen the palate between tastes. The accompanying wasabi was enjoyably spicy and had a slight texture, making me wonder if it had been freshly made, and the ginger was plentiful.

All scrumptious. Will...