Melbourne, 2011. Mohawk-haired chef Benjamin Cooper puts the finishing touches on a dish of raw kingfish with zesty lime, green nahm jim and coconut cream. For the newly opened Chin Chin, it’s an instant hit, popping with colour and tingling on the tongue. Our chopsticks can’t pick it up fast enough.

That mercurial combination – silky fish, acid punch, sting of chilli – can be traced back to the 1980s when Nobu Matsuhisa first teamed raw fish with jalapeno chilli and yuzu in Los Angeles. But this story isn’t about the history of kingfish sashimi. It’s about its future.