Is this Brisbane’s most expensive sushi?

Highly marbled wagyu, foie gras and truffle combine in the one blinged-up piece of sushi, to bid for the title of the city’s most luxe offering.

Could this be Brisbane’s most luxurious sushi? An elongated almond of rice topped with highly marbled wagyu, a slice of foie gras and a sliver of truffle? It’s just one of the opulent courses in a tiny, expensive, 14-seat Fortitude Valley restaurant. No we’re not at Joy, this year’s pocket-sized success story in Bakery Lane, rather at Shishou, open just a couple of weeks and situated little more than an enthusiastically thrown chopstick away in Brunswick St.

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Blinged-up: Wagyu, foie gras and truffle nigiri and eel nigiri at Shaishou in Fortitude Valley. Pic Mark Cranitch.

This newly opened enterprise is an omakase (chef’s choice) sushi degustation. At the helm is Takashi Nami, a sushi chef with 40 years’ experience in Japan and Australia, with his most recent post at the defunct Mercado in Bowen Hills.

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Shishou’s creation involved a total overhaul of the small shopfront that previously housed The American Diner Co. Now there’s a row of high stools along a blonde-wood bar fronting the open kitchen where the blow-torching wielding, headband-wearing Nami and three staff provide the floorshow.

Luxury outing: Shishou in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

For the opening month, the sole offering is an $85 dinner comprising two sashimi entrées, eight pieces of nigiri sushi, seafood miso soup and dessert and three Japanese teas (fruity to begin, green with roasted brown rice next, then a mint finish). From December there’ll be a 12-piece degustation for $120 and 15 pieces for $150, each with three entrees.

There’s an evident decision to go for premium produce and we begin with sashimi of soft wagyu beef topped with sea urchin and a dollop of caviar, slabs of tamagoyaki omelette flecked with truffle and a bowl of thinly sliced New Zealand scorpion cod. The luxe continues with the nigiri: lightly seared scallops topped with a blob of truffle mayo anchoring two half-moons of truffle; scampi capped with a small cairn of blue scampi roe; meltingly soft kingfish from Japan; dry aged salmon with salmon roe; best of all, a caramel blanket of the softest

Liquid refreshment: seafood miso at Shishou. Pic Mark Cranitch.

Tasmanian sea urchin; the previously mentioned lightly seared wagyu/foie gras/truffle combo that ratchets up the wow factor; and orange-glazed Japanese eel held by a belt of seaweed to the rice below. All of the items are prepared immediately before serving and with the short menu designed to be consumed in an hour, one item is presented after another in a fairly rapid progression. A large bowl of miso soup with chunks of blue eye trevalla, pipis and scampi is the savoury finale, followed by a matcha tea macaron filled with butter cream and adzuki (red) bean paste, which is pleasant but loses something by being chilled rather than having the filling freshly added on the spot.

Sweet conclusion: the matcha tea macaron. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

The wine selection doesn’t bother to dial down costs, with a dozen wines including Dom Perignon 2008 for $690 and Alain Gautheron Chablis at $125. The most inexpensive by-the-glass offering is the Granite Belt’s Ridgemill Estate Pinot Grigio at $16. The collection of sake, plum wine and shochu is larger, with two sakes available in 150ml pours. Oddly, some customers are drinking beer, which isn’t on the menu but apparently will be shortly.

Afterwards, we wonder who could make their way through longer menus, given the amount of food $85 buys. But it’s good value given the quality of the produce; a veritable pile-on of culinary bling. Sushi lovers with deep pockets, rejoice and book now.

SHISHOU

356 Brunswick St,

Fortitude Valley

BOOK

shishou.com.au/

OPEN

Tuesday to Saturday from 5pm

MUST TRY

Wagyu, foie gras and truffle nigiri

VERDICT

Food 8.5

Ambience 7

Service 8

Value 8

OVERALL: 8