Restaurant review: Miki’s Open Kitchen, Margaret River

Shop 2/3, 131 Bussell Highway, Margaret River, Japanese.

Tempura trio: Wakame Red Cabbage Sunomono, Kingfish Sashimi, Dashi Maki Egg Roll at Miki'

ITÂ’S an inauspicious beginning; the down-at-heel shopping arcade off Margaret RiverÂ’s main drag seems like the proverbial road to nowhere. Can this really be the place so many savvy pundits have sent me?

I push a blanked-out door that says “push”; hello, that’d be a kitchen. “Well, it is called Open Kitchen,” quips the guy behind me, trying to find the same restaurant. Boom boom.

We find the proper entrance next door. Persistence has its rewards. Behind the crappy metal and glass façade is a whole world — albeit a small one — of humble, refined Nippon style. Arctic whites, powder-coated blacks, flowers, cool light fittings. A hidden bombshell of pleasure in the most unlikely of places.

If your food radar is on, you should experience a sense of relief the moment you enter this place, first solo gig for chef Mikihito Nagai. Apart from the obvious style, which imbues confidence, it is built almost entirely around Miki’s (very) open kitchen. There are tables, of course, but you’d be missing out if you sat anywhere but the three-sided high bar, looking down at the team doing their thing mainly at two tempura stations beneath impressive stainless extraction canopies.

What it suggests is a place that prioritises food. And, yes, the tempura-focused food here is good. You can buy a bottle of Leeuwin Estate SSB for 35 bucks. And they even give you a cool, fragrant face washer to get things started. The real surprise, however is staff: friendly, efficient, anticipatory, knowledgeable. It’s the exception, not the rule, in a region where waiters are more comfortable talking surfboards than cheese boards. It all provides confidence, as does the pony-tailed Miki, whose beaming smile you cannot possibly avoid.

There is a carte, and you are welcome to select from it, but almost everyone, it seems, is steered towards Today’s Miki’s Trust, a chalkboard $55 set menu. It makes sense.

It might start with a little nibble of omelet in tempura with a nutty miso paste dressing and a piece of cream cheese (fried) with a nori crust. You’ll like both. Sashimi will follow, dressed in a lovely, bright ponzu with a dash of sesame oil, small dice of avocado and fibres of dried, mild chilli. The Tassie salmon and exceptional local kingfish from Canal Rocks (when available) are a highlight.

A tempura trio includes fresh local shiitake stuffed with spiced pork mince (and white chilli-miso paste), a panko-crumbed Esperance scallop with some kind of pink dollop atop (superb) and sweet potato, which is neither here nor there. The cleanser, a mid-meal interlude I loved, is a sweet/savoury “salad” of wakame and red cabbage.

The next dish is a piece of fish in an unusual batter, possibly made of rice flour, along with kombu rice and a clear, sticky mushroom sauce. Like all Miki’s fish, our Exmouth red emperor was terrific, but the sauce? A bit old school, perhaps.

To finish, a small but very satisfactory yoghurt pannacotta crowned with honey-sweet pickled plum jelly. You’ll be happy.

Of course, you might like to go off-piste too. The tempura-battered Port Hedland king prawns with “open sushi” — sushi rice, avocado dice, chilli threads and tobiko — is a joy, and beautifully presented. The slow-braised Busselton octopus with zucchini in broth is recommended.

I found tempura-battered wagyu slices stuffed with enoki mushroom and dressed with a carrot and ginger relish, like a little fried dumpling, kind of … odd. Sorry Miki. Japanese fusion and I rarely get along.

But Miki’s and I have a future. The produce is great, the flavours time-honoured, the vibe infectious. Rarely will you see people working so hard for your dining dollar. Just ignore the entrance.

Address: Shop 2/3, 131 Bussell Highway, Margaret River

Phone: [phone] Web: facebook.com/mikisopenkitchen

Hours: Dinner Wed-Sun

Typical prices: Small dishes $13; large $33; desserts $8; set $55

Summary: Fry me to the moon

Like this? Try … Tempura Hajime, Melbourne; Fuji Tempura Bar, Sydney

Rating: 3.5 out of 5