&Sushi City Works Depot

Overview

The word and is often used to describe an action that is repeated which makes perfect sense for the newly opened &Sushi in City Works Depot. This is not your standard sushi outlet serving up your usual teriyaki flavours. &Sushi will provide you with so much more, including kumara puree, matcha, cream cheese and strawberry. With such intriguing flavours like this and others, one visit is simply not enough and you may find yourself visiting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The City Works location is the second for &Sushi with their flagship store in Newmarket. Similar in look and feel, the new location is bigger and brighter. The front opens out to large communal concrete tables and on a clear day a stunning view of the SkyTower. The inside follows that industrial theme with plywood tables, floating walls and an exposed ceiling. It's a funky set up that you would imagine would sit comfortably in a bustling Tokyo side street.

However it is the food that sets &Sushi apart from the rest with both a cabinet and menu option available. Their cabinet is a heaving array of nigiri, sashimi, maki and uramaki options as well as egg basket varieties and bite sized rice paper rolls with their own injectable soy. The cabinet lets you mix and match flavours. It is a sea of vibrant colour of innovative flavour combinations so you may find yourself standing there for a good ten minutes deciding what you want to try.

The menu is no different with a variety of donburi, noodle and salad dishes available with gluten-free, vegan and free-range options all readily available. On this occasion, we opted for a couple of pieces of nigiri and shared the tuna tataki salad. My teriyaki salmon was perfectly cooked, beautifully pink and not at all overdone as can easily be the case with salmon. My second option - grilled terakihi was light and flavoursome on a perfectly formed sweet ball of wild rice. It was our tuna tataki salad that was the star of our meal. The flavours and textures of rocket, radicchio, orange segments, avocado and cherry tomatoes combine to make this dish zing with freshness and crunch. The tuna was seared to perfection in a chia seed crust and generous in serving too. It was a meal that made you feel satisfied without being overly full and is a dish I would go back for time and time again. The edible flowers that adorn it make it a dream dish to snap for Instagram too.

It isn't just the food that they have nailed at &Sushi – the service is fantastic. Upon arrival we were greeted and told everything was available as takeaway if we were in a rush. We were given water instantly and new plates with new ginger and wasabi accompaniment when our second meal arrived. Our waiter even waved goodbye as he finished his shift.

&Sushi has all the benefits you'd expect from a top restaurant with all the qualities of your local, casual eatery. It is unlike any other sushi spot and has already been renamed the only sushi in my eyes.