Kissuu opened late last year in Darlinghurst with a slick ground-floor restaurant, vinyl-spinning bar upstairs and a name that roughly translates as “lucky numbers” in Japanese. Six months later, Kissuu has closed its doors.

The two-level venue seemingly had all the building blocks for success. Chef and co-owner Adam Burke was ex-Nobu with local experience as executive chef at Manly’s Sunset Sabi, while DJ Richard Penny worked a luxe bar of plush fittings and red neon.

Co-owner Paul Schulte concedes Kissuu’s arrival might have been a year or two early in the revitalisation of the Oxford Street strip that runs east from Taylor Square.

But he believes other factors are at play, from interest rates to the competitive disadvantage for small operators and the sheer number of venues eyeing a slice of the hospitality pie.

“There’s a lot of competition in Sydney. The balance of what we have in this city with the number of people here, compared to the rest of the world, is crazy,” he says.

An experienced operator with a posse of local openings under his belt who also co-owned venues in San Francisco until recently, Schulte is “reassessing everything” and pruning his hospitality holdings.

Schulte was involved at Kissuu through his hospitality group Hunger, which is aimed at spotting and supporting emerging talent.

Kissuu earned some promising reviews for its menu, which shifted gears between Japanese and other influences. For instance, the prawn and scallop gyoza was served with “Burmese broth”, while beef tartare on Japanese crisps was dressed up with muntries and Davidson plum. It wasn’t enough.

“I’ve learnt to pull the pin early [when something isn’t working],” Schulte says.