There's an exquisite tension in sushi, a subtly vibrating string that links simplicity and complexity. On the one hand, sushi is just raw fish over rice. On the other, it's an honouring of nature and tradition in a taut dance of breathtaking intricacy. It's what makes great sushi experiences ethereal and thrilling. It's what happens when you eat at Sushi On.

This new restaurant is from chef Jang-Yong "Yong" Hyun, born in Korea, trained in Tokyo and previously at Kisume, Komeyui and Kenzan. This is his first restaurant: you can feel Yong's excitement, but I also sense a clarity of vision, a restraint that is almost fierce, a dining philosophy that carries Japanese legacy alongside the freedom of feeding Melbourne, using local seafood and responding to it with sensitivity and creativity.

Sushi On serves eight people a night, all at the counter in the serene, sparse dining room. Meals begin at 7pm and diners progress together as Yong crafts his "omakase" ("I leave it to you") menu. There are 20 or so morsels, most of them seafood and rice, but also a soup and two desserts. Everything is a delight. Quality sushi shouldn't be cheap and the value is outstanding.

The intimacy between chef and diner is as powerful as the culinary immersion. Yong deftly cuts fish, scores it, touches it with wasabi and presses it over a small block of rice before perhaps torching it, soy-daubing it, spritzing it with citrus. The detail in this theatre is glorious. The amount of rice and how it's shaped differs according to the seafood: fattier fish such as tuna have less rice squeezed harder; garfish and snapper have more. And what rice! Yong's is a blend of medium and short-grain, seasoned (and coloured) with red vinegar, barely sweet, nubbly and pert.

It's a pleasure to see Australian seafood treated with such reverence. As is common in Japan, fish is aged at low temperature for a few days to remove moisture and reduce fishiness.

King George whiting is briefly torched so the fat between skin and meat melts. Delicate and clean, it's touched with umeboshi (salted plum), adding an angle to the shimmery smoothness.

Mackerel is vinegar-cured and sliced more thinly than is traditional in Japan because leaner Aussie mackerel has better mouthfeel when cut into wisps rather than chunks. Yong daubs it with pickled kombu because he's a fan of Mediterranean-style acidic escabeche dishes he's eaten in Melbourne. The chef moved from Tokyo because our city is so multicultural and this tiny dot of kombu is a beautiful illustration of his locally anchored cuisine.

Sushi On means "sushi warm". Fish is brought to room temperature for service and cooked rice is kept at body temperature: this is eating, of course, but it also feels like merging with food, art absorbed into the person.

The experience is warm, too. This is a dining journey that feeds the heart.