Haku

Haku is the best Japanese dining in Perth, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. You can stop reading here if you want, that’s basically a summary of the following 1,500 words.

Set in a publicly undisclosed location in Carlisle with no markings on the shopfront and curtains drawn the entire time, the restaurant is only open to up to 6 people each evening (a significant increase from the 2 people per night when it first opened), with bookings only able to be done if you slide into their Insta DM’s. The menu is a mystery, the price is not fixed and there are no other staff members outside of the chef.

For Simpsons fans, right now this may be eliciting memories of secret society aka the Stonecutters, but unlike Homer and unfortunately for us, the Stonecutters were significantly easier to infiltrate as this place is booked out for the rest of 2023. And you thought Marumo was difficult to book? Please, there’s a new champ in town.

So what on earth happened when we went?

We were warmly greeted by Chef Young at the door, entering a small room with a spotlight shining on the counter where we would be seated and the chef would be having a chat to us while he was preparing the food. To the left was a large dry aging fridge with hanging fish and beef, and electric guitars and amps on the right (thankfully, everybody was spared from my guitar ditties that night). So yeah, not your average restaurant setup.

Chef Young showed us the three boxes of food we would be eating:

Box #1: A5 wagyu flown from Japan, Toothfish, Figs
Box #2: Unagi, Toothfish, Foie gras, Black cod
Box #3: Heaven in a box (aka all the Sashimi)

It was at this point that I knew it was going to be a very good night.

We kicked off proceedings with the sashimi box; some delicious Fremantle octopus and a “Japanese Taco” (Hokkaido scallops in a seaweed wrap). Both sensational.

Then came the stuff which really set Haku apart from the competition. Chef Young dry ages all of his seafood personally on site, and it truly elevates it to the next level. Red Emperor dry aged for 5 days. The salmon dry aged for 7. Kingfish shoulder aged for 3. Chef graciously answered our questions in great detail on how the ageing process over different amounts of days can affect the fish’s flavour and texture which opened my mind to new horizons. I don’t know if I can go back to non dry-aged fish now, but sadly I don’t think I’ll have a choice as I can’t see myself finding $15,000 in the household budget (or physical space in the house) for a dry aging fridge.

“Fat is flavour!” Chef remarked.

Well that is good news because I must be full of flavour then.

Then came my personal favourite – the three-week aged Southern Bluefin Tuna done multiple ways.

First it was chutoro served with [a very generous serving of] grated foie gras and my goodness this is one of the greatest things I’ve eaten in this decade. I cannot explain it other than it tasted like a party in my mouth and only flavour was invited. Then came the other cuts – Shimofuri which he had somehow dry aged to have the same texture as beef, Mashed tuna served in a hand roll and Kama-toro, one of the fattiest (see also: delicious) but rarest cuts of tuna you can get due to the limited amount of meat available in that part of the fish.

“You are all so serious… so quiet”

This was because all of us were having a moment, and quite frankly you could have billed me for the full meal at this stage and I would’ve been fine with it. I have never had such quality of produce prepared in such an incredible way in Perth, but somehow we were only one out of three boxes down.

Chef got out his copper pan and began preparing Tamago (or basically a Japanese omlette).

“Oh, this is something I learned how to make in Japan!” I told chef, which I imagine is the equivalent of my 8-year-old cousin telling LeBron James that he also plays basketball.

As the egg was cooking, chef put in a big piece of unagi, and an even bigger piece of foie gras. This was slightly different to the… *checks notes* nothing that I put in my self-cooked omelette in Japan.

And yeah, it tasted a few thousand times better too. Foie gras in an omelette just seems like a decadence reserved for people on yachts in Monaco on F1 weekend, and certainly not for someone who needs to VPN to Argentina and Turkey just to save a few pesos on their streaming subscriptions.

Then for the first-time all evening, chef left the counter to go out the back to prepare the Anago [eel] tempura. I suppose deep frying on a counter with customers and their exposed eyes is probably OSH’s worst nightmare, but this also gave our dining group time to chat amongst each other and reflect about the meal so far.

Basically it was just us repeating what the heck how is this so good.

A couple of minutes later the chef came out with six pieces of perfectly fried tempura, perfectly balanced with the chef’s sauce.

“Just keep those coming out please” said my dining buddy seated next to me. I echoed those thoughts.

“How do you make the sweet soy sauce?” my wife asked.
“5 soy sauce, 5 mirin, 3 sugar. 5-5-3. Simple.”

Now you know too.

Whilst we were eating, chef was already hard at work slicing and portioning another dish; the A5 wagyu tenderloin tempura. Like watching a good trailer to get you in the mood before you see the film.

Once we were done with the anago tempura, chef brought out the next tempura dish which was toothfish with a miso sauce. Fish and miso are a classic combination which my wife and I thoroughly enjoy (we first tried Black Cod Miso at Nobu), and just as Chef finished plating the fish and miso sauce and I was preparing to get my hands ready to take the plate, he took out a big block of what looked like parmesan cheese.

This was the first time in the evening I was genuinely confused.

“Excuse me, is that… cheese?”
“Yes, Parmesan.”

And then he started grating the parmesan ONTO the fish. My wife and I looked at each other, mouths slightly agape. Cheese on fish? And miso? What? Would Heston even try this?

Sensing the doubt in the room, he explained how the cheese perfectly balances out the other flavours in this dish. He was right of course, and as soon as took that first bite I became an instant believer. I still don’t know how it works and it still looks incredibly weird when I type it out, but it just works. Trust me on this. Now I want to put cheese on everything and it will probably not work 99% of the time but I am okay with that because I know that 1% will be mind blowing.

As soon as we finished this Chef brought out the Wagyu tenderloin tempura. Beef tempura is a foreign concept to me but Chef assured us that this was quite common in Japan. Again, it worked.

At this point we were comfortable enough to ask Chef about his age and other places he had worked in Perth at.

Long story short: He is retired at the age of 38 and does Haku for fun.

“How?!”

“In life there are 3 things: marriage, children, buying a house. If you don’t do one of these things, you can be rich.”

Ouch, 3 from 3. Although I guess for any unmarried readers out there, marriage is arguably a good thing for wealth… if you marry into the right family.

The next dish pushed me over the edge. Wagyu steak with shaved foie gras. Okay it looks like I am a sucker for foie gras but it was pure decadence, please look at the photo of it on my insta. It was ridiculously rich and it was art.

Chef then brought out the last savoury dish of the night which was the Agedashi black cod, which served as a wonderful finish after the heaviness of the beef. Perfectly balanced and swimming in an agedashi stock that you could happily drink.

We finished off the meal with a slice of deep fried fig, generously sprayed with Hibiki (Japanese whisky) and I walked out the door the happiest I’ve been after a restaurant meal for quite some time.

Here is my conclusion: After my slightly underwhelming experience with Egawa-ya, Haku has restored my faith in getting a true Japanese omakase counter experience in Perth. Whilst they’re quite similar in that respect, Haku is just simply levels above in every single metric for quality.

The only negative I can think of with Haku is that I can’t try it again in 2023 because yeah, they are fully booked out this year. For a secret restaurant, there's a few too many people who know about the secret for my liking.

Now excuse me while I try slide into their DM’s to try and book for my birthday in 2024. DON’T YOU DARE STEAL MY BOOKING.

Seriously, don’t.

Okay I am going to book now. Bye.