Retired dairy cow yukhwe with desert lime. Calamari jeotgal and Geraldton wax. Bokbunja-poached quince with oat sable and Jersey tomme; it doesn’t take a genius to spot Mika Chae’s fondness for mashing influences at his first restaurant, the elegant Doju in Melbourne.
There’s plenty to mash too: Chae’s Korean heritage, an infatuation with Indigenous Australian ingredients, no formal training but instead stints cooking with chefs like Massimo Mele and Ben Shewry, a passion for sustainability and direct relationships with farmers and, probably the kicker, a curiosity for how traditional Korean dishes and techniques might collaborate with Western ones.
He’s also related to culinary star, Jung Eun Chae (of tiny, nigh-impossible-to-get-into restaurant Chae) and his minimalist, split-level CBD restaurant was, somewhat astoundingly, formerly part of a food court. Safe to say, Doju is unique. It’s often delicious too, and fun and fascinating.
The yukhwe (a trad Korean tartare), for example is made with lean, full-flavoured, attractively textured beef from former dairy cows. It’s served on bugak, a dark, deep-fried cracker made with nori and rice flour and flavoured with a flash of desert lime and rich, green, dill and egg emulsion. It’s an impressively cohesive array of flavours.
Chae’s mix-and-match approach stretches across the menu, from the bread (sourdough made pale pink and spicy with gochujang) to oysters baked with a garlic, gochugaru and lemon myrtle-flavoured “Doju butter”. Quinces are poached in a Korean wine made with raspberries (bokbunja) then accompanied with finely diced dried persimmon, oat sable, sweet creamy cheese and topped with a grated tomme made with milk from the same farm as the retired dairy cow meat.
Doju already has its cult dish – pave-style potatoes flavoured with black garlic butter and baked to crowd-pleasing, crisp-edged goldenness – but my vote instead goes to slippery-salty ribbons of calamari jeotgal sitting on ginger and sesame-flavoured rice and topped with Geraldton wax, or raw tuna scintillatingly mixed with spicy gochugaru, sunrise lime and trout roe served with doenjang créme fraîche.
Doju does an effective line in on-theme cocktails (the spicy Korean Margarita with a gochujang-spiked salt rim) and its compact wine list is well up to the task of accompanying robust flavours. Add informed service and Mika Chae’s calming presence in the semi-open kitchen and you’re well equipped to embark on a unique mashup of a culinary adventure.
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