MELBOURNE | Chotto Motto is a fun and eclectic casual Japanese restaurant in Collingwood by co-owners Dylan Jones and Tomoya Kawasaki. The space is an ode to retro Japanese pop-culture, something that’s very evident from the moment you walk inside.
The venue is bright and loud, filled to the rim with Japanese posters, toys, and trinkets, some of which are interactive. Dylan and Tomoya manage to pull things off, ramping the energy up to 11 without making things feel tacky. It’s kind of like walking into someone’s apartment.
This homage to Japan without taking things too seriously flows through to the menu. The food here isn’t bound by tradition, but it does respect it. Pan fried Hamamatsu style gyoza isn’t the focus of the menu that it used to be when the restaurant launched in 2019. Rather, it’s a wider array of dishes on offer. There’s still gyoza, just different.
For gyoza, you choose your sauce (black garlic umami oil, chilli oil, or yuzu ponzu) then one of either classic pork, king prawn and ginger, and shiitake and chive. They come in serves of 10 and are very good.
Other dishes include things like onigiri chickpea croquette with nori and tonkatsu sauce, charred corn with Thai green basil, vegan ‘parmesan’, and rice puff, and shio koji marinated karaage with green curry mayo. It’s creative, and delicious.
There’s a few desserts on the menu, along with cocktails that follow the same theme as the food, beer, and wine. A refurbished Japanese vending machine dispenses local and Japanese craft beers, alongside things like Japanese cola, umeshu, shochu and sake.
Chotto Motto
287 Wellington Street
Collingwood
Victoria 3066
Australia
Telephone: 0466 054 911
E-mail: [email protected]
Website
Open
Tue – Wed: 5:30pm to 9:30pm
Thu – Sat: 5:30pm to 10:30pm