Restaurant review: Honto lives up to the hype

“Some of the food at Honto is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Some is merely good. But Honto is selling a dining experience — theatre, wonder, intrigue. And I’m totally sold,” writes Tony Harper.

Honto restaurant, Fortitude Valley. Picture: AAP/Sarah Marshall

HONTO

Food: 8.5/10 | Drinks: 8/10 | Vibe: 9/10 | Service: 9/10

The restaurant nerds of Brisbane must surely, right now, be the most satisfied, best fed in the country.

Think about it — Donna Chang, Little Valley, La Cache a Vin and Walter’s all opening in the past six months; E’cco reinvented, and more still to come before the close of the year.

But even with such an atomic list of newcomers, the only place I hear regularly, dotingly, almost-cultishly yapped about is Honto, the new Japanese-plus restaurant from the guys behind Longtime, parked along a dimly-lit corridor in the alley behind the Wickham Hotel.

Perhaps its pervasive, anti-welcome is part of its charm: God knows it is a trick that has worked for ever in Melbourne but has managed to almost-consistently fail in Brisbane.

And yet Honto is buzzing.

The underbelly theme continues into the restaurant: it’s as dark as a nightclub.

Centre stage — the raw bar kitchen — provides most of the light, with a bar and the kitchen-proper bordering the sides.

Honto, Fortitude Valley.

The music is loud enough to grab your attention, but just a decibel or so below the need to shout. Conversation still flows.

Two days after dining there I’m still a little starstruck, and — with the benefit of mowing the lawn and a some housework to ground me — I’m wondering if the theatre of the place got under my skin; perhaps skewed my thinking. If it did, who cares?

Restaurants are more than mere food, and if Honto sells adventure as convincingly as Disneyland, it should be applauded.

But the food is also terrific, at times stunning. It follows a Japanese theme, some parts traditional, some parts not.

The best of its menu is at the beginning, the raw stuff.

I sample scampi (half a dozen tails) with finger lime, citrus and macadamia ($32), a description that doesn’t do it justice. There are discs of radish and a fine julienne of daikon, other bits I don’t recognise. It’s electric. And with it comes my first glass of sake: Ikekame ‘Kuro shikomi’ Junmai Daiginjo.

There’s also yellowtail kingfish — a heftier dish in both size and flavour — in a puddle of yuzu nahm-jim (cleverly cross-cultural), puffed rice ($19). The sake steps up a notch to a Junmai Gingo. Perfect.

Then my lack of hipster-Japanese-speak lets me down. I’m unsure about ‘Lobster katsu sando’ ($12) but order it regardless.

I get what’s meant by lobster and katsu, but I am not sure about sando.

Out it comes like Betty Windsor’s cucumber sandwiches with crumbed lobster in the middle.

Wow!

The lobster katsu sando at Honto.

Meanwhile my daughter is doing a karaage chicken version on a milk-bun ($9) and I’ve graduated to Kome Do Raku Junmai.

We progress like this for 90 minutes — food stepping up, sake becoming richer. And even though there are ebbs and flows, it is all kind of wonderful.

Some of the food at Honto is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Some is merely good. But Honto is selling a dining experience — theatre, wonder, intrigue. And I’m totally sold.

HONTO

Alden St, Fortitude Valley

Ph: 3193 7392

Chefs: Lastavec and Koji Ohori