Chase Kojima sports a damn-good poker face, and wouldn’t the Gold Coast know it. For the weeks leading up to the opening of his new Isakaya-style Japanese restaurant Kiyomi at Jupiters Casino, a striking portrait of arm-crossing Chase staring straight down the barrel made a lengthy appearance on our streets and local foodie sites. His photographic intensity, artistically punctuated by chef whites and a jet-black background, said one thing: Chase Kijoma means serious business on the glitter strip. And unsurprisingly, serious business is Kijoma’s dialect. Following executive chef stints in the Nobu Restaurant Group venues in Las Vegas, Dubai and San Fran, Kijoma became Restaurant Executive Chef at Soyko Japanese restaurant at Jupiters' sister casino, The Star, which he directs today. Anyone east of Walsh Bay who understands umami is familiar with Kijoma’s signature fusion of today’s flavours with traditional technique. His Bonito Kunsei & Myoga sashimi is something of an Australian-Japanese legend. Now the Gold Coast can thank its lucky sutas that he gave Sydney a semi-sayonara to dip his toes in the sand. On entering Kiyomi, the sliver of intimate, moodily lit restaurant space on the casino’s second floor, a blunt contrast from the ring-ring-bling of the game floor below, the question arises. Why place a restaurant based on culinary serenity in a casino? Jupiters Casino is amidst a $345 million revamp, which will embrace unutilised space with a six-star luxury tower, major refurbishments and a series of contemporary restaurants and bars. A florid pathway to excellence on which Kiyomi is the first step. That’s why. Enough with the context; let’s grab the chopsticks. Once your eyes have adjusted to the mood lighting, walk past (yes, keep walking) the drinks bar studded with liquor bottles and criss-crossed in timber, where bar staff clad in crisp black bid a Japanese welcome. The dark timber seating arrangements, dark ceramic and the circular Japanese prints upon the timber Jenga-style wall, all (barely) lit by angular lanterns that whirl out like a geisha’s fan, are certainly a play on the Kijoma signature aesthetic. DINING In For The Win Words by Lizzy Keen Fifty shades of shadow, and embracing the subtle contingencies of calm Japanese dining. Dining duos, you’ll have plenty of room. Larger parties, you guys have your own semi-separated dining booths with grey-blue faux leather benches backed by timber walls to control acoustics. The result is a sublimation of sound from overbearing noise to an enjoyable buzz. This is the work of Sydney-based architecture and interior design firm Luchetti Krelle, whose hospitality bravado includes Donny’s Bar in Manly, Zumbo Patissier and Mitch Orr’s new Acme restaurant in Sydney. The melody between this spatial serenity and Kijoma’s so-fresh and so-clean cooking style is no coincidence; Luchetti Krelle have arguably played some of their best cards for this place. The piece of interior resistance must be, however, Tokyo street artist Houxo Que’s six by two-and-a-half-metre luminescent artwork backdropping the restaurant. Splashing and spraying with fluorescent colour with a fish-tank like glow, it’s as if the artist dropped a UV light, opened fire with some Stabilo highlighters and said, “get ready to trip.” Luckily Kijoma’s cooking flaunts no such pandemonium. His style aggregates maximum freshness from each raw or cured ingredient, while his objective is to fuse different treatments of Australian and Japanese fare with a little play and storytelling. He now calls Australia home, after all. So, those chopsticks. Sharpen them. A quick word of caution as we board this outing; if you’re second-guessing your affiliation with raw fish and looking around for the gascooker, it is a wiser idea to leave your palette in the hands of Chase Kijoma. Not yet a fan of raw fish? You will be. First to prove this is the Ocean Trout with pickled wasabi and smoked yuzu soy; folds of thick, pink-flesh trout slices beneath a scrunch of watercress, which when combined with both fresh and pickled wasabi salsa, is both sweet and piquant, clean and punchy. Move ahead to perhaps the prettiest and most divisive of Kiyomi’s dishes, the seared scampi with foie gras crowned with apple matchsticks and mizuna, which is a mustard-like micro-herb. pindaramagazine.com.au Pindara Magazine 103
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