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Before we proceed, you may have some questions about daifuku and what it actually is. Thumb through a few books and you’ll score a no-frills answer: it’s a Japanese rice cake (mochi) with a filling such as sweet red-bean paste (anko). My favourite explanation is via a sample sentence in a Japanese dictionary. It essentially says: “His face was soft and round, like daifuku.”

The dessert’s endearingly doughy squish hasn’t yet reached the cafe-conquering levels of matcha lattes or other Japanese staples. I’ve spotted daifuku occasionally in Sydney: as a Comeco Foods special in Newtown, enveloping gelato at Ice Kirin Bar, and encasing a herbal mugwort hit at Fuji Bakery in Killarney Heights. But I’ve never encountered anything like the expansive offering at Sydney Daifuku Store in Lane Cove North, which specialises in the vault-cracking delight of splitting open these sweets with a piece of string.

They’re made here by Chisato Nakayama, who grew up in Hokkaido with grandparents skilled in traditional mochi. Daifuku translates as “great fortune” and is linked with special occasions. Nakayama recalls New Year celebrations with these treats.

She later relocated to Tokyo, where many noteworthy examples of the mochi style can be found (I recently lined up behind locals at Shinjuku Isetan’s amazing food hall for that exact reason), but Nakayama didn’t have the luxury of exploring them. “I was crazy busy working as a nurse, I didn’t have enough time to enjoy daifuku,” she says.

Mochi-making as a career option didn’t emerge until December 2024, when she started experimenting with rice flour and fillings at the home of Tin Jung Shea. He runs charming, just-like-Japan venues (from the sake-bar squeeze of Nomidokoro Indigo to smoky Yakitori Yurippi) and along with Studio Hiyaku’s Sunny Liu, he’s behind the SevenH complex where Sydney Daifuku Store is located.

The site is in a highly leafy residential area: you even second-guess whether you’re going the right way as you head towards its address – it seems so unlikely that any shop could surface here. Then SevenH appears, with its understated open design and paved outdoor area. It’s a serene spot that’s in tune with the quiet, made-to-order tempo of Sydney Daifuku Store, which shares the space with Commission Coffee.

While Nakayama consulted relatives as she fine-tuned recipes (“I was asking family all the time”), she also lightened the mochi dough for local tastes. You see her roll it out and pad the centre with ingredients before presenting the completed daifuku to try. The pillowy pastry feels like a soft cloud you can pinch, and a big joy of the eating comes from lopping it in half with a twist of supplied string. Transparent dough gives way to a colour burst of jewel-like anko-lined strawberry, for instance, or a whole grape coated with white bean paste.

The double-chocolate flavour is loaded with cacao-rich ganache, while matcha daifuku contains a generous dose of green-tea powder, its grassy strength nicely tempered by white chocolate and white-bean paste. Given the dough’s marshmallowy, blank-canvas profile, each filling has full impact. The blueberry cheesecake daifuku (where jam-sweet berries are swirled through cream cheese and white chocolate) lingers for this reason. It’s my favourite for sure.

Sydney Daifuku Store opened in March and demand has sometimes led to everything selling out in just 1½ hours. It pays to arrive close to 11am, when mochi becomes available. It’s also worth trying the drinks by barista Adela Lam at Commission Coffee. There’s the black bean latte: nutty and topped with toasted soybean powder. I slammed down the whole thing within seconds. Also ask for the iced condensed milk, with its fruity expanse of blitzed strawberries. This, along with Sydney Daifuku Store’s colourful menu, is a good prescription for anyone with wish-I-was-in-Japan blues.

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