Omakase Haku (Victoria Park)

A private 6 seater omakase which was one of the best meals of 2022 and one of the top Japanese meals we've had.

Omakase Haku (Victoria Park)

Before reading ❗️

Who is this suited for?

Guests who appreciate omakase.

What type of food is available?

Omakase (with a focus on dry aged fish)

How much will it cost?

We paid $180pp (note there is no fixed price).

Where is it?

Omakase Haku is located near Victoria Park.

What're their socials?

Omakase Haku can be found on Instagram here.


The details 📝

Note: Omakase Haku is fully booked for 2023 and is not accepting any additional bookings or waitlist requests. Be sure to follow the Omakase Haku Instagram for the latest on bookings.

Visit #1

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Visit #1: October 2022

This one is a longer article. We've divided it up into two sections - cold and hot.

Table with Bearbricks placed on-top

The Japanese term "omakase" means "I'll leave it up to you". In the context of food, it means the chef is in charge of selecting the dishes for your meal. Essentially, it is a "what you see is what you get". There is no menu at Omakase Haku. What you get is determined by what Chef Young believes is the best produce for the day. You won't find substitutions here, but Chef Young is able to accomodate for allergies ahead of time.

Omakase Haku is a "if you know, you know" type of place. As was Chef Young's previous restaurant which he ran. We loved frequenting his old restaurant and were genuinely saddened when he closed up shop. But we're also happy to have rediscovered his food. The food here isn't the type of food you'd eat every day (even if that was the case, at time of writing, Chef Young isn't taking any more requests).

Chef Young encourages you to "trust your tongue" and not to subscribe to any preconceived notions of taste. The "if you know, you know" nature of the place reflects to the ingredients and the cooking style. Like the atmosphere, there's a certain simplicity with the food - allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves. This isn't the type of place for diners who want to flex over their social media feeds, but rather a place where you learn to appreciate food and nerd out and learn about elements of Japanese cuisine.

As per Chef Young's request, we won't share the location (it's not too far from Vic Park). But if you're well versed with Perth's Japanese food scene and learn your 平仮名, you might see a clue or two on the Omakase Haku feed.

Black and white photo of chef cooking in-front of guests

Step into Chef Young's venue and you'll be met with an intimate counter, seating six. The venue was completely revamped by Chef Young himself and is minimalistic.

Black and white photo of a wall with Marshall guitar amps, guitars and water bottles lined up against wall
Very sharp eyed folks might recognise the location in a previous life

Guitarists will also appreciate the cute Marshall CODE25 amp used to pump smooth jazz beats, the even cuter Marshall bar fridge and a couple of his guitars - including an LTD EC-401.

Tablesetting - Japanese plates, a gold maple leaf shaped chopstick rest with a pair of chopsticks on top
Kutani (Japanese porcelain) plates, glass from Albany and Japanese made chopstick rest and chopsticks

Growing up as a restaurant kid, my parents would always look underneath plates to see the manufacturer. If you're anything like the weirdos we are who.. like to peek underneath tableware to see where it's from, you're in for a treat here.

All the small details here were on point. The maple leaf chopstick rest is made by Tsubama Hutlery from Tsubama in Niigata prefecture. Lacquered chopsticks are made by Yamachiku from Tenama in Kumamoto prefecture. We knew we were in for a good night after seeing the attention to detail, before the food even started!

Cold

Wooden box with cuts of raw fish
Salmon, dry aged salmon, ???, toro (fatty tuna), akami (lean tuna) & hotate (Japanese scallop)

At the start, Chef Young presented the "treasure chests" for the night. We're not chefs, but we've done our best to identify the fish from memory (let us know bellow in the comments if we've misnamed anything!).

Wooden box with various cuts of fish and octopus inside
Grouper, hiramasa (king fish), anago (salt water eel) & Fremantle octopus
Wooden box with wagyu, Japanese wagyu, eel, sea urchin and a tin of salmon caviar
Australian wagyu, Japanese A5 wagyu, unagi, salmon caviar & Tasmanian uni

The first was Fremantle octopus.

Octopus on a red leaf shaped plate
Fremantle octopus & lime zest

Things went from 0 - 100 real quick. Next up, grouper with Tasmanian uni. Note the wasabi is wasabi root from Tasmania (Shima wasabi) which has a less "pungent" sensation compared to the usual everyday wasabi.  

Close up of grouper sashimi with sea urchin
Grouper, Tasmanian uni & lime zest

The uni was absolutely creamy and the lime zest was the cherry on top.

Blow torch searching salmon sashimi
Dry aged salmon

Next up was the first foray into "dry aged" fish. Dry ageing allows enzymes in the fish to break down connective tissue in the muscle and allows for moisture to evaporate. Ultimately, leaving you with super tender fish. The dry aged salmon was slightly kissed by the blowtorch. It made for a melt-in-your mouth experience, almost tasting like salmon belly (if you told us it was salmon belly, we'd probably believe you).

Chef cutting tuna sashimi
Akami
Tuna sashimi marinating in a bowl of soy sauce
Akami marinating in house-made soy sauce

Chef Young proceeded to slice some akami and marinate it in soy sauce. The soy sauce is made in house. We'll get back to the akami later.

Blow-torch searing the wagyu
Aburi-ing the wagyu
Close up of dry aged toro on a floral plate
Dry aged toro

Toro in our experience has been sinewy and chewy, which makes chutoro (medium fatty tuna belly) our preference. But lo and behold, the magic of dry aging - it broke down all the sinewy parts of toro and made it taste like butter.

Close up of Australian wagyu served with uni on top
Australian wagyu & uni

Australian wagyu and uni made for a very.. Luxurious tasting morsel. Notice the cute Dragon Ball Z kutani ware 🐉.

Chef pointing to a chunk of tuna with chopsticks
Chef Young with a beautifully coloured piece of tuna
Close up of tuna
Tuna bloodline
Marinating tuna bloodline in soysauce
Marinating the tuna bloodline in soy-sauce

Chef Young proceeded to pull out a chunky of tuna he was dry ageing. He prepared some of the tuna blood line - a part of tuna that is commonly thrown away. More on this later.

Close up of jelly looking tuna sashimi
Soy sauce cured akami "jelly"

After around 15 minutes, the akami was ready to it. It had a "jelly" like texture after marinating in soy sauce.

Chef preparing tuna
Toro "flags"

Some beautiful slices of toro were presented to us. Just look at the colour!

Close up of toro sashimi with beautiful marbling
Beautiful marbling on the toro
Chef weaving strips of tuna sashimi
Chef Young "braiding" the tuna

The last bit of tuna (for now) was an intricately braided piece.

Close up of chef braiding strips of tuna sashimi
Close up of tuna which has been braided
"Braided" tuna
Kingfish sashimi
Dry aged hiramasa kingful
Blow torch searing kingfish sashimi
Aburi-ing the hiramasa kingfish

The hiramasa and negitoro (leftover tuna) marked the end of the "cold" and now we were onto the "hot" dishes (ok, maybe the negitoro coming up is an exception to that).

Aburi dry-aged hiramasa with seasame seeds "crispy chicken"

The aburi'd hiramasa made for a tender, buttery experience. Contrasted with an abundance of sesame seeds, it got a "crunchy" almost "crispy" like texture.

Tare (savoury sauce) being drizzled onto the tuna offcuts
Adding tare (savoury sauce) onto the tuna offcuts

To finish up the "cold dishes" - negitoro.

Nori (seaweed) is lightly torched.

Close up of negitoro served in seaweed
Negitoro "ice-cream"

The tuna is minced and presented inside the nori.

Hot

Hand holding a saucer pouring soup into soup bowls
Uni, hotate and mushroom soup

Note the cute Dragon Ball Z kuwani ware once again.

Close up of uni, hotate and mushroom soup
Uni, hotate and mushroom soup

Next up - a uni, hotate and mushroom soup. It really allowed the sweet uni and hotate to show off their natural flavours.

Close up of highly marbled A5 Japanese wagyu
A gorgeous slab of Japanese A5 wagyu

Notice the cute Doraemon plate!

Blow torch searing A5 wagyu
Aburi-ing the Japanese A5 wagyu
Close up of wagyu wrapped around Japanese scallop with mullet roe on top
Japanese A5 wagyu, hotate and karasumi (borttaga / cured roe)

This tasted how it looked. Incredibly rich and fatty with a little saltiness from the karasumi.

Cooking tamago yaki
Anago tomagoyaki
Close up of caviar tins
Three different types of caviar (soy shoyu caviar, shiraz gin caviar and smoked caviar)
Tasmanian uni, anago, shoyu, shiraz gin and smoked caviar tamagoyaki

With uni, anago and three different types of salmon caviar, this was probably the most elevated piece of tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette) I've ever had.

Blow torch searing cheese on black cod
Saikyo black cod miso with cheese

We're (finally) getting towards the end now. We now have a saikyo miso A.K.A. black cod miso (as popularised by Nobu Matsuhisa). This had a unique twist though. Served with a generous helping of cheese 🤩 (it worked).

We weren't joking when we said "generous".

Tuna bloodline "beef"

Remember the tuna bloodline we spoke about earlier? After it was marinated in soy sauce, Chef Young went to cook it. According to Chef Young it makes for a great drinking snack. A little on the irony side (as expected) though with a cooked texture similar to beef.

Close up of tempura eel with uni
Anago tempura with Tasmanian uni "French toast"

One of the favourites for the night - anago tempura with Tasmanian uni, dubbed "French toast".

Chef sprinkling salt onto wagyu
Seasoning wagyu
Close up of Australian wagyu served with uni on top
Australian wagyu, Tasmanian uni and tare sauce

Another favourite - Australian wagyu with uni and tare. Simple, yet delicious.

Fried fish in a broth
Grouper tempura in broth

And finally! The final course. Grouper tempura (from memory) in a broth which.. We can't remember the name of.

Close-up of black sesame ice-cream
Black sesame ice-cream

To finish up - a scoop of black sesame ice-cream. Chef Young doesn't claim to be a pastry chef, so this one comes from a tub.

A range of alcohol against a wall

To sum up, Omakase Haku was one of our top omakase experiences in Perth. Over our nearly 4 hour long dining stint, we learnt a bunch from Chef Young and had some fun conversation with him. It felt like we arrived as guests and left as friends. We're looking forward to (hopefully) dining with Chef Young again!


Visit #2

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Visit #2: February 2023

Following our initial visit in October 2022, we booked our second visit. 6 months later in February 2023. The theme for our subsequent visit was tuna. We couldn't fault any of the courses and were definitely "all tuna'd out" after nearly a dozen courses of tuna.

There's less commentary for our second visit. We'll comment on some of our favourites for the night. If you haven't already, check out our write-up of our first visit, where we go indepth about Chef Young and Omakase Haku.

Interior of Omakase Haku showing Japanese chef uniform, bearbricks and a dry age fridge
Interior of Omakase Haku (Feb 2023)

New to Omakase Haku is Chef Young's dry ager.

Hokkaido scallop with uni soy sauce and caviar

A luxurious pairing of Hokkaido scallop, uni soy sauce and caviar.

Aged snapper with shaved roe
10 day aged Red Emperor with karasumi (mullet roe)
Salmon (dry aged)
Chef blowtorch searing salmon with oil dripping off
Look at that oil from the salmon!
Sake toro (dry aged)

You could literally see all the oil drip off the sake toro (fatty salmon0 as Chef Young seared it with the blowtorch. As you'd expect, this morsel melted in our mouthes.

Blowrtorch searing fish
Blowtorch searing the hiramasa

Like the salmon, the hiramasa also dripped with the fatty omega 3 rich oil.

Hiramasa “chicken sashimi”

The last of the sashimi before our.. "Tuna degustration". The majority of the tuna was dry aged for 3 days.

Chef slicing tuna on top of a LV branded chest

A fancy chopping board rest, must we say.

A rattan basket with different cuts of tuna
The tuna on showcase for the evening
Chopsticks holding tuna bloodline
Tuna bloodline

The first - tuna bloodline. We had this during our first visit. Almost "beef like" in texture.

Medium fatty tuna
3 day aged chutoro

Next up - our favourite cut of tuna. Chutoro, which is medium fatty tuna. The chutoro along was fatty, rich and had the "melt in your mouth" feeling.

Close up of marbled toro
Toro (dry aged)

"Pure butter" is how we'd describe the dry aged toro. Absolutely butter like. Dry aging does wonders to the connective tissue.

Close up of tuna
Tuna vein (underneath bloodline)

An "off the beaten path" cut of tuna which Chef Young describes as "the tuna vein underneath the bloodline".

Close up of marinated tuna
Maguro no zuke (marinated tuna with 6 month soy sauce)

Gummy like in texture, soy sauce marinated tuna using Chef Young's in-house blend of soy sauce that he's aged for half a year.

Close up of tuna cheek
Tuna cheek (hohoniku)

Another less common cut of tuna - the cheek.

Beautiful chunk of tuna
Close up of marbled tuna
Toro head

By the 7th or 8th piece of tuna, we were getting all tuna'd out!

Chef cooking broth on a steel pot
Paradise prawns
Paradise prawns

Breaking the tuna streak with Paradise prawns. A wonderfully sweet soup.

Chef rolling foie gras into seaweed
Chef Young literally rolling foie gras 

The next course was probably one of the favourites of the night.

Chef making tamago (Japanese egg)
Chef Young cooking tamago 

It was wild.

Never have I tasted so much foie gras in my life. The fattiness of the foie gras was offset by the lightly roasted, sweet nori. A little more sweetness came from the anago and saltiness came from the caviar.

Cod with shaved cheese
Saikyo miso and parmesan cheese (rich)

Saikyo miso - very reminiscent of Chef Nobu Matsuhisa's famous "black cod miso". Like last time, the combo of the sweet miso and rich cheese just worked.

Fried anago with uni sauce
Anago with uni sauce

Anago tempura was served next and gave a bit of textural contrast. The uni soy sauce made a reappearance.

Close up of foie gras being shaved onto wagyu
Chef Young being very liberal with foie gras
Wagyu sirloin with foie gras
Kagoshima A5 wagyu sirloin with foie gras and tare

One could call the next dish of the evening, the "climax" dish. Undoubtedly, the richest dish of the night. The warmth from the seared A5 wagyu melted the beautiful foie gras. This left for a super clean plate.

Chef carving out tuna collar meat
Chef Young carving out the tuna collar meat
Tuna kama, homemade vinegar

A perfect dish to follow a rich dish. Tuna kama (tuna collar) with a in-house made vinegar. This dish was like "pulled pork".

Doraemon chopstick holder
Chef Young likes his Doraemon..
Chef mincing tuna meat
Chef Young mincing tuna offcuts for negi toro
Hand holding a negi toro tuna roll
Negi toro

There was barely any wastage of tuna. We finished up with negi toro - minced fatty tuna offcuts.

Fried fig

After 20+ courses, we reached the end. The fried figs were a great and refreshing way to and 3 hours of eating. Our second visit ended up being around 22 courses and we enjoyed it just as much as the first. Damage was $200 pp. Still very reasonable for what we got.

Now, time to make our third booking!

Before visiting 🚙

Where do I park?

There's plenty of free street parking outside and on adjacent streets.