Kingfish Spencer Gulf, rested six days on the bone.
The rice is
Too firm. The chef would start again.
just right
Rice at the warmth of skin.
Hitohada is a ten-seat counter in Kent Town. One evening of South Australian fish in season, each piece handed across the moment it is made, and tea brewed where you can see it.
hitohada: “the warmth of skin”, the temperature our rice is served at.
Press and hold the rice to shape it. Let go, and the fish is laid over it.
Or .
Each piece is pressed in the hand, laid with its fish and handed across while the rice is still warm.
Take a seat
One counter, ten seats, one sitting each evening. The chef works at the left end, by the board and the rice. Every seat is an arm’s length from the wood. Choose where you would like to sit, and we will pass each piece to you there.
omakase, “I’ll leave it to you”: the chef chooses, and names each piece as it arrives.
Seat 6: the middle of the counter. Each piece is passed five seats along to you.
Your pot: seats 5 and 6.
Tea is the only thing poured. Green, roasted and aged teas are brewed at the counter, a pot to each pair of seats, and poured as the next piece is made.
The evening, piece by piece
From seat 6 you watch the chef’s hands at the board. Each piece is pressed, laid with its fish and passed along the wood to you, ten in the order the chef makes them. What the gulfs give us that week decides which.
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Tai kobujime
Snapper, from Gulf St Vincent.
A night between sheets of kombu (kobujime), then a pinch of salt.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: gyokuro, shade-grown green tea, brewed cool.
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Sayori
Garfish, from Spencer Gulf.
Cured briefly in salt and rice vinegar. Nothing more.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: gyokuro, shade-grown green tea, brewed cool.
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Aori-ika
Southern calamari, from Kangaroo Island.
Scored fine, with salt and a drop of finger lime.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: sencha, steamed green tea, the water well off the boil.
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Kisu aburi
King George whiting, from Gulf St Vincent.
The skin seared (aburi) over binchōtan, white oak charcoal. Salt.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: hōjicha, roasted green tea, brewed hot.
-
Hiramasa
Yellowtail kingfish, from Spencer Gulf.
Rested six days on the bone; a brush of soy let down with kombu stock.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: sencha, steamed green tea, the water well off the boil.
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Akami zuke
Southern bluefin, the lean (akami), from Port Lincoln.
Steeped in soy (zuke) for a few minutes. Nothing more.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: kuradashi sencha, green tea kept cold for a year to soften.
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Chūtoro
Southern bluefin, the marbled belly, from Port Lincoln.
Rested four days, with a brush of soy.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: kuradashi sencha, green tea kept cold for a year to soften.
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Ebi
Prawn, from Spencer Gulf.
Cooked just through, peeled at the counter and handed across warm.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: genmaicha, green tea with roasted rice.
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Awabi
Greenlip abalone, from Kangaroo Island.
Simmered slowly in kombu stock and sliced as it cools.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: genmaicha, green tea with roasted rice.
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Tamago
The omelette.
Egg, kombu and bonito stock, sugar and salt, cooked in layers in a square pan.
Your pot, seats 5 and 6: kuradashi sencha, green tea kept cold for a year to soften.
The first piece of ten
Before the first piece, a small bowl of clear kombu broth with pipi from Goolwa. After the last, miso soup and a slice of Adelaide Hills pear.
shari, the seasoned rice. Ours is kept at about the warmth of your palm, and never let go cold.
Warm as a hand.
Medium-grain rice, cooked in small pots through the evening, seasoned with rice vinegar, salt and a little sugar. It rests under a cloth in the hangiri (a wide cypress tub) at hitohada, close to the warmth of your own hand. It cools within a minute of leaving ours, so each piece is handed across the moment it is made. Eat it with your fingers or with chopsticks, in one bite.
Soy. Rice vinegar. Salt. Kombu. Wasabi. Citrus.
That is the whole of it. Each piece is seasoned before it reaches you, so it needs nothing from the dish. The wasabi is grated at the counter; the citrus is finger lime and lemon from growers in the Hills and the Riverland.
No meat of any kind: fish, rice, egg and vegetables. The only thing poured is tea.
Rested, not rushed
Rested. Kingfish and tuna are kept cold on the bone for days, until the flesh softens and the flavour settles.
Cured. Garfish and snapper spend hours with salt, kombu or rice vinegar, and nothing else.
Seared. Whiting skin meets binchōtan for a few seconds, just before it is sliced.
Where the fish comes from, depending on the week, read from the chef’s end:
- Spencer Gulf
- Gulf St Vincent
- Kangaroo Island
- Coffin Bay
- the Coorong coast
From the first towel to the last cup
Oshibori: a hot towel, rolled, when you sit.
The first cup: gyokuro, poured before anything else.
Gari: ginger pickled in rice vinegar, to clear the palate between pieces.
The soy dish: left empty. Each piece arrives seasoned.
The bowl: miso soup, after the last piece.
The last cup: hōjicha, with a slice of pear.
Ask for a seat
One sitting, Wednesday to Saturday, from 6.30 in the evening, for about two and a half hours. Tell us what you don’t eat and we will plate around it.