Despite the fact it doesn’t advertise and there’s absolutely no signage, Brisbane’s most secretive restaurant has just closed bookings for 2023.

Katsu Ya in Fortitude Valley hosts only six diners four nights a week, omakase-style and even if a space does open up, you’ll need a referral to score a seat.

“It is our home and the diners are our friends and family. Six is the maximum capacity to provide the best quality of service because there’s just me, no sous chef and no wait staff,” says owner and chef Katsu Huang.

“We don’t turn over tables, because if you invite your friends or family to your home, you can’t kick out your first group and say: ‘Oh, sorry guys, I have a second group of friends coming’.”

I’m perched at the six-seat counter overlooking the kitchen in a tiny space reached through an unmarked wooden door from a Valley side street.

There are no commercial appliances or tricked-up culinary toys and none of the usual workaday accoutrements of a restaurant kitchen; no squeezy bottles with sharpie-scrawled tape labels, no stacks of stainless-steel catering trays or opaque rectangular plastic boxes filled with micro herbs or mis en place – it is absolutely pristine and bare-bones minimal.

“I have just six of everything,” says Huang,  pictured above, with wife Denise Yang. He waves behind him at the shelf holding the tableware, which he says was chosen to match the wall murals painted by artist Jake Reston.

“I am a bit OCD,” he confesses.

“Oh yes, he is,” agrees Denise, nodding vigorously, “at home too.”

Originally from Taiwan, Huang and Yang came to Brisbane a decade ago. Huang’s love of cooking was sparked in his mother’s kitchen and stoked in Japanese restaurants in Taipei, where he worked after leaving school at 14.  He has only ever been drawn to Japanese cuisine, citing the aesthetics and clean flavours and pointing out the culinary influences left by the Japanese who annexed the country from 1895 to 1945 mean it’s not really a “foreign” cuisine per se.

“Japanese food is not like any other. You don’t just learn and then you become a chef. You continue to be a student,” Huang says.

Part of the discipline, he says is patience.

“For many years, I was only allowed to was to wash the rice and prepare the vegetables, but that was part of my development as a chef – it was important for my career.”

After 15 years rising through the ranks, Huang emigrated to Australia where he joined the kitchen brigade at Sono at Portside.

In 2021, the couple quietly opened Katsu Ya, a restaurant to cook for family originally, but now seating strangers, providing they are introduced via a previous customer.

It’s apparent, talking with Huang, that he doesn’t register a work/life divide. He really does see the restaurant as an extension of his home and his customers as friends for whom he enjoys preparing multi-course feasts.

“I just cook what I feel like eating,” Huang says.

Course after course is prepared on a four-burner induction stovetop with a miniature hibachi grill as back-up. There’s no set number –  it’s how many he thinks fit.

“No one ever, ever leaves hungry,” Huang laughs.

The transactional nature of the exchange seems almost distasteful to Huang.

“It’s not about the money.  It’s just sharing for love. Yes, we still earn a little bit, but it’s more than money.”

While the menu is free-flowing, inspired by the season, availability and chef’s whim, high-end seafood is a big focus.

Huang reaches under the counter and pulls up a box, “sea urchin,” he says reverently, peeling back the paper.

“They’re fresh, just arrived today from Japan today. They taste really different from what you get here. Creamy.”

In another box are rows of fat, glistening, scallops. “They are so sweet.”

Like the environs, Katsu Ya’s drinks menu is minimalist: just one beer, sake that Wang himself imports, and a whisky.

“Of course, if you want you can bring your own drinks, no problem,” he says.

It’s an extraordinary place with a chef who is both simultaneously humble and sure-footed.

“Sometimes when you go out, at the end they ask ‘how was everything?’ I find it confusing. What do you mean how was everything? It must be good. It must be the best. I don’t have to ask –  I prepared it to be good.”

You can follow Katsu Ya and put your name down for a seat via instagram at @valley_katsuya

Related story: Martin Boetz to open new Thai diner Shortgrain in Fortitude Valley