Think about it — Donna Chang, Little Valley, La Cache a Vin and Walter’s all opening in the past six months; E’cco reinvented, and more still to come.

But even with such an atomic list of newcomers, the only place I hear regularly, dotingly, almost-cultishly yapped about is Honto, the new Japanese-plus restaurant from the guys behind Longtime, parked along a dimly-lit corridor in the alley behind the Wickham Hotel.

Perhaps its pervasive, anti-welcome is part of its charm: God knows it is a trick that has worked forever in Melbourne but has managed to almost-consistently fail in Brisbane.

And yet Honto is buzzing.

The underbelly theme continues into the restaurant: it’s as dark as a nightclub.

Centre stage — the raw bar kitchen — provides most of the light, with a bar and the kitchen-proper bordering the sides.

There’s also yellowtail kingfish — a heftier dish in both size and flavour — in a puddle of yuzu nahm-jim (cleverly cross-cultural), puffed rice ($19). The sake steps up a notch to a Junmai Gingo. Perfect.

Then my lack of hipster-Japanese-speak lets me down. I’m unsure about ‘Lobster katsu sando’ ($12) but order it regardless.

I get what’s meant by lobster and katsu, but I am not sure about sando.

Out it comes like Betty Windsor’s cucumber sandwiches with crumbed lobster in the middle.

Wow!

Meanwhile my daughter is doing a karaage chicken version on a milk-bun ($9) and I’ve graduated to Kome Do Raku Junmai.

We progress like this for 90 minutes — food stepping up, sake becoming richer. And even though there are ebbs and flows, it is all kind of wonderful.

Some of the food at Honto is as good as you’ll find anywhere. Some is merely good. But Honto is selling a dining experience — theatre, wonder, intrigue. And I’m totally sold.