Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, chef patron Kazuki Tsuya and wife Saori quietly welcome me as if this is their home rather than their restaurant. It's late November and the owners of Kazuki's have just opened the doors to their hatted Euro-Japanese fine diner in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, which sits on the CBD's northern fringe, having relocated from the Victorian spa town of Daylesford.

The restaurant is a snugly furnished sanctuary – again with a sense of the domestic about it – at odds with its bustling Lygon Street backdrop, Carlton's main food drag.