Melbourne’s appreciation for Japanese coffee, food and spirits has even more room to grow, if these three new ventures are anything to go by.

Petite Japanese coffee bar Hikari, in Melbourne’s CBD, has opened an expansive day-to-night venue, Lunar by Hikari, in Brunswick. Despite being on busy Sydney Road, the venue has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quality, thanks to an L-shaped entrance that reveals little to passersby.

“That’s part of the fun, I think,” says owner Derek Yang.

Once you’re inside, a long and narrow dining room with whitewashed brick walls unfurls, with generously spaced blond timber tables.

The venue’s name is a nod to its plans to do double duty as a cafe and izakaya (bar), with soft lighting and comfortable timber furniture in the main dining area that invites longer visits.

Breakfast might be toasted shokupan bread, yuzu cheesecake or a financier (small almond-based cake). Lunch options include onigiri, shokupan sandwiches, and meal sets: miso soup, greens and rice with wagyu sukiyaki, miso tofu or unagi (eel) and egg.

High-quality Japanese-roasted coffees and teas are on offer, as they are at Hikari, but there’s a greater range at Lunar, up to 10 single-origin coffees at a time. Once a liquor licence is granted, a brew bar that seats six will become a sake bar after dark.

The plan is to pair elevated drinking snacks with a list of 50 to 60 sakes. Current dish ideas include unagi sliders, pipis cooked in sake, and soba noodles with mentaiko (spicy salted cod roe). They hope bar service can start by mid-July.

Open Mon-Fri 9am-3pm, Sat-Sun 9am-4pm (extended hours to come).

458-460 Sydney Road, Brunswick, @lunar_by_hikari

Could Koji Bird be Victoria’s most popular pop-up restaurant? The eatery attached to Bright distillery Reed & Co has come and gone several times since launching two years ago, with each iteration eagerly anticipated.

It’s returning for a brief winter season, serving ferment-driven, chargrilled Japanese small plates on five weekends between June 30 and August 19.

Distillers (and former chefs) Hamish Nugent and Rachel Reed started the izakaya-inspired eatery after experimenting with other ways to use the koji they were making for their Japanese-inspired spirits. Koji is a mix of mould and rice that imparts umami and changes the texture of food.

Themed around fire, this year’s menu is a mix of core dishes, such as the barbecued chicken and chicken chip butty, and new additions such as tofu with XO sauce, paired with shochu-based cocktails. Dessert might be sorbet made with sake kasu – the lees left over from sake production.

The couple’s fascination with Japanese spirits and fermentation has deepened since they closed their hatted restaurant, Tani Eat and Drink, in 2017 to open a gin distillery.

In August, they’ll release Reed & Co Shochu, set to be the first locally produced example of the rice-based spirit. They are also about to open a second distillery dedicated to shochu-based spirits, which they began releasing in 2021.

Koji Bird bookings are open now and are strongly recommended – it will be replaced by another pop-up come spring.

Open for dinner Fri & Sat on select dates between June 30 and August 19.

15 Wills Street, Bright, reedandcodistillery.com

Japanese cafe, design store and grocer Cibi is marking its 15th year by expanding. The space next door to the Collingwood venue – until recently a plant shop – will become Cibi Grocer and Cibi Home, two extensions of Cibi’s carefully considered approach to living.

The grocer will transplant the cafe’s current takeaway operations into a dedicated space with a separate entrance. Bento boxes, morning pastries, takeaway coffee and sandwiches will be served from that area. Japanese ingredients, house-made sauces and ferments, bread and Victorian-grown fresh produce will also be available, expanding on Cibi’s current range of groceries.

“It’s something we’ve been doing since the pandemic but we wanted to do it properly,” says co-owner Meg Tanaka.

Cibi Home will allow Meg and partner Zenta, a trained architect, to display more of the homewares they love, with a focus on furniture, rather than the small objects they currently sell. Expect Japanese-designed stools, chairs and more.

The two new spaces will open in October.

33-39 Keele Street, Collingwood, cibi.com.au