https://minamishima.com.au/athome

Chotto, 35 Smith Street, Fitzroy (2026)

28/07/2025

Last night .bar — Japanese Slippers, Highballs, and snacks by to the tune of 昭和 Showa era soundtracks.

Thank you Chris, Jack, Colin, and all at Apollo Inn and Gimlet for having us — for your thoughtfulness, silent efforts, and all the details that made the night what it was.

We thank you for the invitation and are forever and always humbled and grateful for your support.

And, eight years on, thank you to our chotto 家族 family for braving the rain and late night to join us. Sylvie & sister, Nick & family, Leslie & partner, Simone, Minamishima 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♂️ our hearts are so full to see all of you in our almost-annual reunion. ♥️

Thank you very much for returning for a taste of chotto.

Till next time, and from our hearts, thank you again.

誠にありがとうございました。また今度！

10/07/2025

もしもし? We are excited to be back with our lifelong tomodachi, , this time .bar for “Calling from Tokyo”.

It’s been a while since our last event (we’ve just been writing about onigiri, bento and Konbini in between!), and we can’t wait to bring a taste of our chotto style dining to you.

It’s a short, sharp menu of snacks that are all new, and the subarashi (fabulous) crew at Apollo Inn have all of our favourite alcoholic things — nihonshu, whisky highballs and cocktails of Tokyo.

See you there, ね？

Sunday 27 July
3pm - late
Apollo Inn | 165 Flinders Lane

Reservations in the link 🇯🇵

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Let us know if you’d like a tease of the menu!

29/12/2024

It’s that time of year where we reflect on the year that was, and all the grateful moments along the way.

1. Special One Piece edition of my favourite diary, which I came across while there for the author appearance . If you can get the Japanese versions, they usually have quirky little things at the back, including recipes and the Japanese micro-seasons. I couldn’t resist the special One Piece fabric with nods to the characters! 🍖

2. In October, Konbini came out, pictured here with a sakura-shaped rice maker from .

3. Earlier in the year, we actually snuck in another book, A Day in Tokyo — re-print of Tokyo Local. We updated a few recipes and a portion of the content, as some of the businesses had moved or closed (please visit your favourite kissaten in Japan before it disappears). The sake barrel is a 12 year old vintage from Tokyo.

4. And finally, seven years on, team chotto meets up again! We’ve actually met every year Wakiko, our first barista, visits from Tokyo, but this was disrupted when we couldn’t travel. This was our first full gathering in a while ♥️.

We are beyond grateful to everyone who has bought, cooked from and gifted our books this year. Everyone who has written in, sent photos, and our many lovely ex/lifelong customers who continue to message with words of encouragement, life chats and Japan conversation till this day. We are so lucky to have you all.

Thank you to everyone involved in bringing these books to life, and from the two of us —

良いお年を！ Wishing you a good new year. May 2025 bring you many wonderful things!🎍

01/11/2024

Our final post for Konbini is the collection of weird and wonderful things you’ll find there.

1. The epic Shonen Jump (Happy 25, One Piece!)

2. Umamusume special collaborative chocolates

3. Bath salts, clay mask, and rom&nd makeup. Ume gummies.

4. Fluffy ear stick

5. Local senbei and Choya umeshu for after work de-stress

6. Pokemon figurine

7. Peko-chan milky candy. Imabari towel

8. Lawson 💙🤍🩷

Thank you for joining us for this Konbini series! We hope you’ll take a moment to flip through the book when you pass a bookstore. Our publishers, and designers .studio did an incredible job laying this out.

We cited Monocle and Kenya Hara’s “白 White” as references, and Paul, our publisher, had a laser sharp vision of how he wanted it photographed.

Photography ran over an epic two weeks, with almost every recipe captured and layout sheets on the studio walls (thank you and ). And over in Japan, , our Japanese photographer, probably ran over his brief capturing konbini in all seasons.

The result is a beautiful, thick book, lots of clean, negative space, gentle colours to break the chapters up, and different finishes on the cover.

We’ve kept the recipes in here approachable - things you can make for quick(ish) lunches and weeknight dinners, or to bake on the weekends. While light hearted, we’ve also touched on konbini and its place in Japanese society - now, and in the future.

There are sobering moments, and also ones of great warmth, at the collective essence of the Japanese spirit which we hope we have captured.

Thank you again to Paul. This has very much been a project driven by trust (from him and Lawson in us) and love (on our parts). We hope you too will feel this spirit within Konbini’s pages.

どもうありがとうございました。

#コンビニ

28/10/2024

The bakery and dessert section of the konbini - from old fashioned donuts to pon de ring, coppe pan, maritozzo and croissant taiyaki.

We’ve also included our favourite nostalgic recipes: daifuku, black sugar steamed buns (from onsen towns), our tribute to Lawson’s premium roll cake, and the kissaten classics - pizza toast, purin and coffee jelly.

#コンビニ

21/10/2024

It would be remiss to start a book on Konbini with anything other than onigiri… 🍙

1. Lawson’s premium range of onigiri
2. Lawson’s frozen onigiri range
3. Utagawa Hiroshige’s woodblock print of onigiri, eaten along the Tokaido // Onigiri in Spirited Away // Onigiri in Demon Slayer
4. Where Konbini really began 50 years ago - as American party food places selling corn dogs
5. Karaage-kun (which was introduced in 1986!) who made it to space flight with JAXA in 2020 (he’s known as Space Karaage-Kun)
6. The rice burger — recipe in stories

Konbini begins with the origin story — onigiri and the hot snacks counter.

One more week till it’s in bookshops!

#コンビニ

07/10/2024

And here it is! Konbini — our heftiest book yet, with images for close to every recipe, and different finishes for the cover.

When we first conceived the idea for this, we never imagined it would cover rural Japan and topics including the 3/11 earthquake, depopulation or the East vs West Japan flavours of chuukaman.

But we were lucky enough to snag an interview with Lawson, and over many months, including a visit to Lawson HQ, piece the story and workings of the Konbini together.

This book is a tale of a business that is interwoven with Japan’s identity and culture — a love letter of words and recipes for those who live abroad and miss their local Konbini, and those who have yet to visit this B-kyu gurume (B-class gourmet) wonderland.

P.S If you are in Sydney, we will be at Kinokuniya on Oct 23. The link to the event is in our profile!

P.P.S We have included the recipes for chuukaman 中華まん and nikuman 肉まん (Chinese style buns) in our stories. We hope you try it!

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Our deepest thanks must go to Paul McNally, our publisher from for believing in us for this. , our Japanese location photographer, , our recipe photographer, and Katri Hilden, our editor for bringing this all together, and

#コンビニ

30/09/2024

This is something we’ve been moonlighting on for a bit now — コンビニ Konbini — our ode to the Japanese convenience store. 🍙

It took us a year to get the concept over the line, and months to convince one of the big three to let us interview them. And finally, finally Lawson (our favourite) agreed!

For this, we travelled from Tokyo to Morioka, visited remote onsen towns where konbini do not exist, and did stakeouts in Nihonbashi.

We tried many packaged things (as well as their non-konbini doppelgängers), gave our Japanese location photographer - Gorta Yuuki - weird and wonderful items to photograph, and humbly asked if a Lawson Karaage-Kun plushie from HQ could be purchased (production is limited so this was very politely declined).

This is our story of the konbini — from the roll cakes, tamago sando, karaage and coffee jelly to much, much more. The traditional, the modern, the celebratory food and the collaborations…

Konbini will be in bookstores from the last week of October. We hope you’ll enjoy it!

P.S. Do you notice anything different about the 7-11 sign in the second last photo?

#コンビニ

30/03/2023

Much love to our guest for capturing, and so beautifully curating, these images from our pop-up on Monday. We didn’t have a moment to take any photos ourselves!

We’d like to thank Steph and the incredible .future crew for having us, and the phenomenal [a former chotto guest and now sake samurai] for her profound sake knowledge on the evening. It was wonderful reuniting with you for this!

To Minamishima, thank you always for your support for everything that we do.

And to our lovely guests who made our night - , , , , J via and .yoon - having your love and support seven long years in is everything. It makes it worth our while.

Thank you for warming our hearts and bringing a smile to our faces. 🥰🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♂️

Till next time,
chotto 🌿

03/02/2023

『限定*New Pop-Up＊』1920s Japan. Moga girls. The end of the Meiji Restoration. And the beginnings of Yoshoku.

We’re back this festival for another pop-up, this time with .future, riffing on 1920s Japan, grand old hotels, and ’Western food’ (the literal translation of yoshoku 洋食).

『The Menu』

Seasonal appetisers Local chestnut potage Mini wagyu katsu sando Abalone pasta, abalone liver sauce Wagyu hamburg steak, fried egg, pommes puree Miso soup, Japanese pickles, salad Autumn fruits parfait

with optional sake pairing by the Japan Sake Brewers Association, Sake Samurai Simone Maynard .

$165 per person with a drink on arrival
Monday 27 March from 5pm
At Future Future, Richmond

Tickets via link in bio!

*Fun facts:

モガ 👒 - Moga is short for (mo)dern (ga)l / girl, the term used for females who adopted Western styles and behaviours at the time

モボ 🎩 - Mobo (no guesses there, is short for (mo)dern (bo)y), is the male equivalent

バイキング - a buffet in Japan is known as ‘baikingu’ from the word ‘Viking’. It was the name of the first restaurant in Japan to serve buffets, called the ‘Imperial Viking’ in Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.

10/04/2022

Please let us know if you haven’t received an email from us! We are here for you 💌.

Chotto

28/07/2025

10/07/2025

29/12/2024

01/11/2024

28/10/2024

21/10/2024

07/10/2024

30/09/2024

30/03/2023

03/02/2023

10/04/2022

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