Twenty years. Two decades. It's a long time to be in business in the notoriously fickle hospitality industry.
Nagisa Japanese Restaurant, take a bow. Last month the popular waterfront venue celebrated its 20th anniversary at a dinner held with Wine Selectors.
In a 2017 dining review published in Weekender Daniel Honan wrote: "Surviving the mean streets of Honeysuckle's restaurant row is quite a feat. The fact that Nagisa Japanese Restaurant has been open for more than 10 years is an implicit testament to its ability to give the people what they want."
That was written before COVID-19. Before groceries, rents and fuel skyrocketed in price. Before the cost of living was referred to, day after day, as a national "crisis".
Despite these challenges, Nagisa is still going strong. Wine dinners, collaborations, awards and (perhaps the highest of all accolades) it's a restaurant proudly recommended by Novocastrians as a "must" for visitors to our city.
The beginning
Tetsuhiko Namba opened Nagisa Japanese Restaurant in October 2004 with his sons Taiyo and Yohei. It was a family business from day one.
"Tetsuhiko was born in 1945 in Manchu (now China) during World War II, and he talks about how his family had to retreat back to Japan when he was three months old," Taiyo tells Weekender.
"He lived in Okayama during his early years before moving to Tokyo during his senior schooling years. He then went to Nihon University to study agriculture.
"Interestingly, the same university now occupies the former law courts in Newcastle East [in a partnership with the University of Newcastle]."
Tetsuhiko trained in teppanyaki in Tokyo and worked in various restaurants before travelling the world for 15 years on a journey that included Europe, Africa and an eight-year stint in the US.
He initially planned to settle in the US but, Taiyo says, decided Australia was "a lot safer than America and believed it would be the best country to raise a family".
Tetsuhiko moved to Sydney in 1986 to work at the renowned Suntory Restaurant in Sydney's CBD as a teppanyaki chef. In 1989, though, a long-held dream of owning a farm and raising cattle prompted him to move from the city to Gunnedah in country NSW. There, he started a wheat and cattle farm from scratch.
Ten years later, Tetsuhiko made the decision to follow another dream: to open his own restaurant. Newcastle's beaches, climate, proximity to Sydney and potential for growth was, he thought, the perfect place to do it.
"The timing was great as Honeysuckle Boardwalk was just about to open. Nagisa was one of the first restaurants to open alongside Engine Room and Silo," Taiyo says.
Tetsuhiko stepped away from his "teppan" when COVID-19 hit, forcing restaurants worldwide to pivot to survive and, in many cases, close altogether.
The head chef
Nagisa head chef Chris Schofield and Taiyo go way back.
"Taiyo and I first met at primary school in Gunnedah, where we grew up together and have been best mates ever since," Schofield tells Weekender.
"I moved to Newcastle in 2003 to study natural history illustration at Newcastle University.
"Initially I began working part-time as a waiter at Nagisa while I was studying. This eventually led to me moving into the kitchen and under the tutelage of Taiyo's father and then owner of Nagisa, Tetsuhiko."
Chris took on the head chef role in 2014 and credits "Tets", as he refers to him, with teaching him everything he knows: sushi, slicing fish, kitchen management ... the lot.
"All five of the Namba kids have worked there at some point," he says.
"Taiyo's mum makes the gyozas for Nagisa and the soups for Susuru. She runs the factory at Gateshead which they opened when Susuru launched, because they needed extra space to make the soups and gyozas."
Chris hadn't considered cooking as a career until he started working at Nagisa.
"I found the creative and highly detail-oriented principles of Japanese cuisine to be similar to what I had learnt doing scientific illustration, and cooking has now become my main creative outlet," he says.
"Japanese cuisine is especially appealing, with its mix of ultra-traditional techniques and modern interpretations.
"Over the years we have tried to capture this at Nagisa, maintaining a sense of tradition with classic Japanese dishes like agedashi tofu, chicken kara-age and sashimi that have been on our menu in some form since opening, but also pushing the boundaries of what Japanese food means to us and how we want to share that with our customers through events, collaborations and specials.
"While parts of our menu change from time to time as we try new things, the basics haven't changed a great deal in 20 years.
"Our focus has always been on using quality ingredients with minimal intervention. Beef tataki and kingfish carpaccio, for example, these are a couple of our most popular dishes for a reason; we don't overwork the dish to the point where that main ingredient is no longer the star."
Chris loves to travel, and gains inspiration for his cooking by experiencing new cultures, foods and ingredients and finding exciting ways to incorporate them into Nagisa's menu.
More recently, though, he has adopted a more retrospective approach.
"I've been looking through our old menus and recipes to find ingredients and dishes that may not have received the love and attention they deserved at the time, and finding ways to reinvigorate them," he says.
"It's been a roller-coaster at Nagisa, but it's been fun being able to experience it all with my best mate. It's more of a marriage now than a friendship [laughs].
"We don't try to over-complicate things. We just do good food in a way that we've come to know that Newcastle likes; to look after our regulars without alienating any new customers.
"We try to do new things but not change too much from where we started because we know that's what people like and why they came to Nagisa in the first place."
And illustrating?
"Illustration is something I would like to get back to in the future. For now, though, I'm still happy using the plate as my canvas."
The brothers
"Working at Nagisa I have been able to dapple with great local wines, whisky and sake over the years," says Yohei, who is the sommelier and beverage manager.
"Falling in love with the culture that hospitality brings with it, we took a few leaps over the years into introducing amazing spirits and wines, but we still aim to predominately push Australian local wines that match Nagisa's food.
"I enjoy our pairing events, whether it be wines, gins or whisky; it's always a challenge that Chris and I work through, usually bringing new ideas and flavours into play."
As for Taiyo (restaurant manager and owner), hospitality is a way of life.
"We love our locals - whether it is suppliers, customers or friends - we love the daily interactions, we make new friends daily," he says.
"Hospitality is a way of life, we love people! People coming to our venues for anniversaries, dates, business meetings or just a casual meal with friends ... it's about the smile, the chats and the experience we can offer. This hasn't changed over 20 years and hopefully for many more years to come.
"The Namba family would like to thank all past and current staff for their efforts over the years, it has been an amazing journey and we are sure there will be many to come.
"The Nagisa team would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the past 20 years."
The future
Nagisa is now one of three restaurants owned by the Namba family.
Susuru Ramen & Gyoza Bar, co-owned by Chris on Newcastle's King Street, opened in 2017, and Âpé Yakitori Bar, located next door to Nagisa, opened in 2022.
Susuru's menu is a fresh, local take on traditional Japanese comfort food.
Âpé's food offering is yakitori style, where seasoned meat, fish or vegetables are placed on skewers and grilled over a charcoal flame.
"I remember in 2016 talking to Chris about opening another venue," Taiyo says.
"We talked about Sydney, different types of restaurants, but not having two Chris's available to us, we decided to open a funky fun restaurant called Susuru. Full of flavour, vibrant, the ramen soup made from scratch, 12 different flavoured gyoza dumplings, all made in-house.
"It was definitely very exciting and a big learning curve to have two venues."
Susuru's monthly "Special Ramen" collaboration with local businesses has proven popular.
Susuru translates to "slurp" in Japanese. Anyone who has tried ramen will understand the reference. Âpé refers to fire in Indigenous Japanese, and is equally apt.
"After COVID, in 2022, we decided there was enough confidence in Newcastle for a Nikkei charcoal restaurant, headed by Nicolas Pedemonte (who had been the sous chef at Nagisa)," Taiyo says.
"Having lots of experience in charcoal back in his home country, Chile, we decided to hone into the farm-to-plate concept using predominantly Hunter produce cooked over charcoal."
Last year leading Japanese yakitori chef Ryuma took over Âpé's kitchen for two degustation dinners. Enough said.
