A little Japanese, a little French but a lot to love at this Armadale passion project

When you hear the words “fusion food,” do you feel excited or alarmed? The term always makes me think of the respected American chef and author Norman Van Aken, who is often credited with coining the phrase in the 1980s. He celebrated the thrill of influence and interpolation, but also cautioned against fusing flavors just for kicks. “Someone might say, 'I'm going to put blueberries and squirrel meat together because nobody's ever done it,'” he said. Smithsonian magazine in 2014. “Maybe there's a reason they never did. When it is forced and done to surprise by surprise, it becomes something that has little, if any, value.

Rest assured: there are no squirrels or blueberries at Bansho, a Japanese-French restaurant in exclusive Armadale that opened with little fanfare in late 2023.

Rather, the food here is thoughtful and accomplished and the dining experience warm and enveloping. When Japanese and French flavors and techniques are fused, it is done with sensitivity and purpose.

Take the tartare ($15), which uses New Zealand-raised king salmon. The fatty, finely chopped fish is very French, but the sour seasonings (ginger oil, pickled plum) lean toward Japan. The salmon is placed on a mustard leaf, turning a plate of fork into a cheerful but luxurious snack in the hand. There's chawanmushi ($22), a Japanese custard. Here it's stuffed with crab and, in a bold move, topped with celery vichyssoise. Japanese steamed eggs layered with creamy French soup? well, yes It's delicious, the silky flavor variations playing like soft yet lingering ripples.

I will always order a dish that sounds strange. Would the chicken mousseline roulade with kombu-dashi béchamel ($32) be Bansho's squirrel and berry catastrophe? The chicken breast is wrapped around a herb mince that is slow-cooked before being tempura-fried, so the skin is crispy but still light, closer to baked than baked perfection finger licking calorie dump. Some of the milk in the béchamel, a classic French white sauce, is replaced with dashi, a Japanese stock. Also on the plate, a golden oven of thinly sliced ​​potatoes and a red wine juice. Sorry, rubberneckers, it's delicious, a happy medium between comfort food embrace and elegant culinary ballet.

When Japanese and French flavors and techniques are fused, it is done with sensitivity and purpose.

Bansho is a passion project of early restaurateurs Larry Xie and Mira Wu. He's from Melbourne's western suburbs, where his parents ran cafes and a motel before moving to Adelaide, where they ran casual Japanese restaurants. He grew up in China. The couple met in Chicago as architecture students and bonded over a shared love of eating out. The restaurants that captivated them were the cozy bistros of New York neighborhoods and the elegant French restaurants of Tokyo.

Back in Melbourne, they cooked up Bansho's idea with Japanese chef Tomotaka Ishizuka, who has three decades of experience. I first came across Tomo-san's food at the exquisite kaiseki restaurant in Melbourne that still bears his last name. He later spent four years as chef de cuisine at Crown Resorts. The trio is hands-on at Bansho, which feels professional but also personal, as the people who run it care deeply about making it work.

You see nothing of Bansho from the outside. Before dining here, I stood outside on a bright autumn day and looked helplessly into the dark brown dining room.

Once inside, however, the environment is harmonious and welcoming. The curved lines, brass railings and booths read a bit Art Deco, but there are Japanese elements in the printed wallpaper, natural stone and open sushi counter.

You can only come for sushi or sashimi – it's exquisite. You can even visit for vegan sushi – the plant-based menu is amazing, a product of Ishizuka's time designing kaiseki, a style of eating that involves a progression of dishes and includes lots of vegetables. I loved the red pepper on rice ($6) and the gunkan ($6), an oval sushi roll here piled high with native beach plantain. The regular sushi platter ($78) is truly charming, reminding the diner that while raw fish is ubiquitous these days, there's a wide gulf between table-top fodder stuffed with plastic shells and the skilful representation of top quality seafood.

I didn't have high expectations for Bansho – the only report I'd received from a restaurant was that it was “a bit weird”. I have to disagree – I was transported as soon as I walked in and then carried away by the experience. Whether you call it fusion, fusing, or mash-up, the closest I got to a squirrel was watching a possum climb a tree on the way home.

This review was originally published on Have a great weekend magazine