Tucked into Darlinghurst’s Crown Street, Moku seeks to bring Japanese food, drinks, and culture to Sydney.
The bar is headed by mixologist Charles Chang, who was among the top 100 of Diageo’s World Class Competition. Many of his cocktails at Moku pair Japanese flavours like matcha and ume with native botanicals such as lemon myrtle and strawberry gum.
In particular, Moku celebrates the highball. The cocktail menu includes unique takes on highball cocktails, and the huge selection of Japanese whiskey behind the bar is available neat or in a whiskey highball.
“In Japan, we don’t have spritz, we have highball,” Charles explained. “That’s why we call our spritz a highball. It’s a very Japanese culture thing, and we want to bring that culture to Sydney.”
Excitingly, Moku offers Sydney’s first bottomless highball experience, available every Saturday. For $95 per person, guests can enjoy 90 minutes of bottomless highballs alongside a share plate menu.
Ha Chuen Wai, former chef at Sushi E and Sokyo, has recently joined the team, and is now offering a counter-top omakase experience two nights of the week. The carefully curated highball selection enables guests to maximise this new omakase experience.
“The tastes will be very elegant so we don’t want to serve something with very high ABV to break a customer’s palate,” Charles explained. “For omakase I would suggest people start on a highball cocktail so it will be refreshing and light to pair with the entrée dish like sashimi.”
The more robust flavours of the main course can withstand a stronger drink.
“When you’re going to sushi, to the main course, you can try a long drink. We do have some long drinks without bubbles. It’s still light and refreshing. For example, we’ve got a peach oolong tea, and a matcha mixed with miso and nori.”
To finish the meal, Charles recommended the hojicha latte, which mixes hojicha with vodka and coconut cream.
As well as the large selection of Japanese whiskeys, Moku also serves a range of sakes, another favourite of omakase diners.
“We do a variety of sakes. Different rice, different regions, different yeasts, different labels of sake. From house sake, from sweet sake, from fruit sake, from premium sake. We have a lot of selection,” said Charles.
Among the premium sakes, Iwa 5 is proving especially popular. Iwa 5 is made by former Chef de Cave at Dom Pérignon, Richard Geoffroy, utilising three rice varieties and five different yeasts.
“They use a lot of rice and a lot of yeast. They’re trying to make a Chablis- or a Chardonnay-style sake,” Charles described.
Moku is open and licensed for dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30pm to 11pm
and lunch on Friday and Saturdays from 12pm to 3pm. Omakase dining is available every Wednesday and Thursday night
