“Yes.” That’s the only English word Korean-born Alex Yu knew when he arrived at a Camphill Communities social care farm outside of Dublin in 2007.

“I was young and thought I’d just be happy doing anything,” Yu says.

“The first day, they asked, ‘Hey, Alex, what would you like to do here?’ I couldn’t understand the question. They asked me again, super slow. And all I said was, ‘Yes’.

“After that they didn’t really speak to me. They just put me in the farm, and I was milking in the morning – 5am, 6am – which was fine by me.”

The 40-year-old Yu laughs when remembering this story but that word, “yes”, has come to define his career – then as a social worker, now as a chef – and his willingness to place himself outside his comfort zone.

Yu started cooking in Ireland when a Japanese coworker baked him a chocolate cake for his birthday from scratch, something he found “shocking” at the time. Fascinated, he started to teach himself how to cook.

“I realised I should change my career and move to Australia,” he says. “[Here], I started at very local Japanese shops, working a lot, because I had a lot to catch up on. I was happy working 100 hours a week.”

Yu rose through the ranks, eventually landing at Sokyo in Sydney in 2014, working under chefs such as Chase Kojima, Brian Logan and Sano Takashi. He would go on to become sous chef of that restaurant. After eight years he felt “too comfortable” so he moved cities again to take up a head chef role at Melbourne’s Yugen, which had a broader menu with Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese influences. Yu helped that restaurant earn two chef hats.

“I thought, ‘change city, change the company, change the cuisine’,” Yu says. “I was very lucky. There was an excellent team.”

Now, Yu’s moved again, landing in Brisbane as executive chef at Sokyo Brisbane, one of the first restaurants to open at the blockbuster Queen’s Wharf complex.

“I was missing doing fully Japanese food in Melbourne, so when The Star contacted me and said, ‘we’re opening a Sokyo in Brisbane’, I said, absolutely. Because I know the Sokyo brand, I really love it. So that made me come.

“But Brisbane is a new experience, like Melbourne, which surprised me at the time. What people want and need in each city is different, and it’s the same here – I need to study the local diners, the local suppliers. Everything.”

Sokyo Brisbane certainly looks different to the dark and moody Sokyo Sydney. Design firm Hassell has given the 160-seat restaurant a lighter and brighter treatment that makes the most of its floor-to-ceiling windows that look across the expressway to the river to South Bank beyond. It’s all light timber screens and detailing, the two signature elements a swank circular private dining room and a lengthy sushi bar backed by black tiling.

It’s a fitting canvas for Yu’s by now celebrated artistry with sushi and sashimi.

Sokyo’s menu is split into starters, tempura and items cooked on the robata grill on the one hand, and traditional sushi items on the other, including nigiri, sashimi, and signature nigiri and sushi rolls.

Starters include a kingfish miso ceviche with green chilli, crispy potato and lime, a Hokkaido scallop served with wagyu bresaola, salsa, coriander, bonito and sesame dressing, and A5 wagyu with egg yolk, garlic chips and gold leaf. The go-to play, though, is a chef’s selection 24-piece sashimi platter, artfully presented in a style befitting Yu’s moniker as the “sashimi florist”.

For tempura, you can order snapper with a coriander salad and tarragon ponzu, squid with ichimi salt, black pepper and chilli vinegar, and Moreton Bay bugs with a grapefruit salad and pickled ginger mayo.

Cooked on the robata there’s Marra lamb loin with umeboshi (salted Japanese plums) and mint, a nine-score Stockyard Kiwami flank steak with a shio koji marinade, wasabi and lime, and king prawns served with a yuzu butter and lemon.

There’s also an “Essential” section that includes miso-glazed toothfish served with Japanese salsa and pickled cucumber, and a nine-score Kiwami scotch fillet grilled over bincho and served with a Japanese shiso chimichurri.

The signature nigiri and sushi roll selections include ocean trout nigiri with an umami sansho paste and lime, salmon belly aburi nigiri with spicy daikon, sesame and chives, a scallop aburi nigiri with spicy mayo and chilli dressing, a Queensland spanner crab roll with spicy aioli rolled in soy paper, and a tuna roll with tenkatsu and spicy truffle mayo.

There’s also a Sokyo signature tasting menu, a banquet set menu and a vegetarian set menu.

For drinks, there’s a signature cocktail list, and a sake menu that includes sparkling sake. The wine list runs to about 110 bottles and favours local producers, but includes a lengthy selection of champagne.

“No one knows me in Brisbane” Yu says. “So there is pressure, but all I can do is my best. I try to build a really good relationship with suppliers and the community, and just be more honest – never lie to the guest, never lie to the supplier, and never compromise on quality.”

Open Wed-Sun 5pm-10pm

The Star Brisbane, William Street, Brisbane, 1800 888 899

sokyodining.com.au