Kenzan

About Kenzan

Kenzan is a Collins Place institution — a lower-ground Japanese dining room serving Melbourne CBD since 1981, named for Edo potter Ogata Kenzan and long associated with owners including Kazu Murayama, Yuki Munehiro and Boeing Cho with a brigade of Japan-trained sushi chefs. Enter from Collins Street or Flinders Lane into a carpeted, lantern-lit room with a 12-seat sushi bar, main dining floor and shoe-off tatami private rooms ($20 room fee per room; two rooms for groups of six or more). The menu spans weekday lunch sets Gozen and Korin, à la carte sushi and sashimi, hot and cold entrées, and tableside nabe ryori — shabu shabu and sukiyaki cooked in front of you — plus seasonal specials, an extensive sake and wine list, takeaway by phone (no hot-pot takeaway), and online bookings up to six weeks ahead via the official site. Time Out (2023) calls it one of the city's true culinary institutions; AGFG lists it as a Chef Hat–awarded destination for authentic Japanese dining. AFR featured Kenzan among Melbourne's best business-lunch restaurants in May 2025.