Just Opened: Joji, Sydney

Joji is a brand new Japanese inspired bar in Sydney's CBD on the corner of King and George Street. Located on the fifth floor above the flagship Cartier store there's a range of cocktails and more substantial bar snacks. On a gorgeous day, take a seat on the outdoor terrace and sip some creative cocktails and snack on food until 2am every night. But there's one course that you cannot miss!

Joji is by the ESCA Group (Henrietta Chicken, Lily Mu, Nour and Aalia) and just opened a 10 days ago on the 31st of October 2024. It's around 5pm on a Sunday when Mr NQN and I arrive. "Where is it?" we say to each other, walking around before spotting the projected sign on the ground that points you towards the elevator up to the bar.

JŌJI occupies a large space spanning 310sqm/3336sft with plenty of indoor and outdoor terrace seating as well as bar seating in front of the chefs and their 2 metre robata grill. The decor has a warm vibe thanks to lots of orange and there's a DJ spinning tunes.

We are shown to a table outside on the terrace which is already busy with people relaxing on a late Sunday afternoon. We start with two drinks: an Inchigo with Haku vodka, strawberry, matcha, clarified yogurt and toasted milk. This isn't your classic strawberry matcha latte, it's very much a reimagining of it with a strawberry cocktail with a matcha meringue resting atop the ice cube. Having said that it's delicious and is my pick of the two. For the other drink I actually wanted the non alcoholic version of the Joji Hardshake but they said that they had run out and only had the alcoholic version left. It's made with Flor de Cana 4 year rum, almond amazake, coconut, pandan and mirin with a cute little racoon print on cocoa butter on top. I ordered it because I love amazake as well as coconut and pandan. The coconut and pandan are subtle in this and the almond amazake is different from regular amazake (a sweet low alcohol drink made from rice).

The food menu is designed by executive chef Paul Farag. Also the tables on the side of the terrace are quite small and necessitate a bit of a balancing act when eating. They're probably not designed to eat a full meal and you're better off ordering things one or two at a time. We start with a sashimi plate that is fresh and delicious with kingfish, salmon, tuna, snapper and scallop. Mr NQN devours this.

I love a good Japanese sando and it was a toss up between this and the Kiwami Wagyu sando at $75 but we go for the scallop and bug sando, sort of like a prawn or ebi katsu burger except made with scallop and bug meat with pickled cabbage mayo. This is nice-the bread is a bit thick and I think could be thinner for the ratio of the filling to the bread by just a smidgen but it's a nice sandwich. It's also quite pricey for a sandwich but it does use scallop and bug meat. Also I find that when you eat anything substantial at a bar, the prices do add up quickly.

I was very excited to try the curry bread because I love curry anything. I was envisaging a kare pan, the Japanese savoury curry donut and while this is deep fried there is only a smidgen of curry sauce in the bread.

We were warned by our waitress that the Joji burger was a bit sloppier and saucier so I expected something along the lines of a sloppy joe spilling out with wagyu bolognese atop a burger but this is a neat looking slightly saucier version of a burger. There's a medium rare beef patty, American cheese and a wagyu beef bolognese on a potato bun. It's rich and very umami and the beef bolognese intensely beefy just like a traditional Bolognese in Italy. It could do with more pickles just to balance the intense richness of the beef and cheese but perhaps that's just me who loves pickles.

At around 6pm most people leave and we have almost the entire side terrace to ourselves. It's time to order dessert. To go with it we try the Soba Clover infused with Bandwagon rare dry, buckwheat (soba on the menu), raspberry and citrus which is an interesting mix of flavours.

I'm not usually a sweet tooth but dessert ends up being my favourite course here. The mango mochi resembles a skinned peach but it's a thin, stretchy mochi skin filled with mango ice cream on a bed of thick coconut cream custard. To finish it off there is kuromitsu or Japanese black sugar syrup with a single rose petal. The mango ice cream is delicious, the mochi is stretchy and the creamy coconut rounds out this dessert perfectly.

We almost just shared the mango mochi dessert because we were quite full but then we would have missed out on my other favourite dessert and my favourite thing on the menu. Purin is Japanese for pudding (as in a crème caramel style pudding) and this one is an absolute beauty. It's perfectly creamy and so moreish that I can't stop taking spoonfuls of this especially with the Okinawa brown sugar syrup has a wonderful depth of flavour and the generous smattering of sea salt flakes that melt into the syrup.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever eat dinner at a bar?

Joji

Level 5/388 George St, Sydney, NSW

Open 7 days from 4pm-2am

https://www.jojisydney.com/