Sushi paired with cocktails, Malaysian influences on the menu, and an Italian favourite for dessert tell you everything you need to know about new Japanese restaurant Ronin. Here, rules were made to be broken.

Named after the term for a samurai without a leader, the omakase (“leave it to us”) experience is a reflection of its founder Patrick Kwong’s unconventional pathway to this high-end branch of Japanese cuisine.

After finishing school at 17, he began working in kitchens in Malaysia, eventually training under a Japanese sushi master there before deciding he needed to broaden his skills in Australia.

Working for six years in Sydney at Japanese spots including Bondi Best, he settled in Melbourne for love during pandemic lockdowns but struggled to find chef jobs with so many restaurants shuttered. So, he started Ronin as a pop-up, eventually running it for over a year. Now he’s got a permanent space on Little Collins Street, where Massi and (briefly) Cucina Povera Vino Vero once were.

That unorthodox career path has unshackled him from many omakase conventions.

Among his nigiri (usually seven to nine pieces), you’ll find Hainanese fish rice, a play on the name of the South-East Asian chicken dish. Kwong uses sea perch for its texture and tops it with the ginger-spring onion dressing that’s integral to the original. The soup course also brings his culture into play, with a prawn stock delivering flavours similar to Penang’s hokkien mee (prawn noodle soup).

His partner, an Italian-trained pastry chef, makes a tira-miso dessert that’s salty and sweet.

“Other [omakase] places are very discreet, quiet, serious. But I’m doing the opposite,” he says.

Cocktail pairings, not typically done in omakase dining, are offered with the 13-course menu ($185), including a Thai basil sour featuring Roku gin. One half of the venue is also set up for drinks before and after dinner.

Warm golden tones and striking black finishes bounce off one another in the space, with an L-shaped omakase counter set up for between eight and 10 diners at a time.

“The name ronin is kind of my story,” Kwong says. “I left my master back in my country and now I’m here doing my own concept.”

Open Tue-Sat, with 6pm or 8.30pm sittings

445 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, 0481 253 354, roninomakase.com