We ended up here after our trip to the nearby pier to see the adorable penguins. It was a weekend night and we didn't have reservations but they were able to find us a table which was very appreciated. The interior is nicely decorated, with a big outdoor terrace that overlooks the water. It was pretty chilly so we stayed inside, but one nice day it's definitely worth doing. There's an extensive sake list, and plenty of beer but I stuck with iced tea which changes regularly. Mine was a lemon rosemary which wasn't too sweet at all. For food, we started with edamame that came with a lovely spicy dipping sauce. That was followed by some skewered meat which they specialize in and you should definitely get - they're reasonably priced and a great accompaniment to drinks. Finally, we had a rainbow roll from their well curated sushi menu. My husband said it was some if the best sushi he's had recently - definitely very fresh. Service is friendly, and if you aren't inclined to dine in there is a dedicated take out area. read more

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I must say, my last visit here was the most disappointing. Your restaurant is only as strong as your weakest link, and there was a few weak links that night. The food is always good. It's always fresh, and tasty and beautifully presented. In this regard, they didn't let us down. But the service was so incredibly bad. They clearly forgot someone's entree, and instead of just owning it and admitting it, there was every excuse under the sun and most didn't even seem plausible and varied from wait staff to wait staff. I'd rather just know for sure that something has been forgotten, so we have a realistic expectation of when to expect it. I just don't think they either cope when very busy, or their staff just need more training. Other than the bad service, I have to compliment them again on the food. Every dish was delicious and looked good too. My favourite was the Tuna Tataki (picture attached). Really, really good. Pricing is a teeny bit high, but I guess average considering Japanese food is a bit pricier than other cuisines. Parking isn't always great, so I like coming to the earlier seating so there's a better chance for a parking space. The decor is good, but the chairs a bit uncomfortable and heavy to move when adjusting yourself at the table. But overall, I think if the food at a restaurant is good enough, it sometimes outweighs some of the negatives. read more

Ichi Ni Izakaya - Tuna Tataki - Japanese Near Me - St Kilda, VIC

Located on the Esplanade in St Kilda, Ichi Ni has excellent views of St Kilda's beach and additionally has a fantastic ambiance. Staff are very attentive and the menu is comprehensive yet set out in a very easy to use way. We chose to dine on many dishes and shared our way through.. My favorites were the Miso soup, Gyoza - pork dumplings, Ebi Mayo - Deep fried tiger prawns in Japanese mayonnaise, & the Chocolate Harumaki - Chocolate filled spring rolls with caramel coated vanilla ice cream topped with almond slithers.. Our meals were served promptly, perhaps a little to prompt, my only fault. The clientele ranged from families with young children, couples and groups. I will most certainly be back for more! read more

Ichi Ni Izakaya - Japanese Near Me - St Kilda, VIC

This place looks amazing. It's really cool inside loads of choices for food. Take away, sushi bar, Loads of whisky and sake. Service is amazing. Extremely attentive, very quick food and drinks. Staff are nice. But food is expensive you don't get much for what you paid for. Blue Crab salad had very little crab. Ebi temprua is quite oily, sashimi was good not great not bad. Sushi a is real good, Gyoza is sloppy but tasty read more

Ichi Ni Izakaya - Ich Ni Izakaya - Japanese Near Me - St Kilda, VIC

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On the St Kilda Esplanade. Good Japanese food. Tasty, varied menu and you can have either a number of small dishes or larger dishes. Range of drinks, sake and wine to choose from. One if my all time favourite dishes is miso eggplant. I was disappointed in the presentation of this dish/ just three slices of eggplant with some miso sauce on top- usually this dish is half an eggplant with beautiful caramalized miso done under the grill. I was therefore quite disappointed with this dish. read more

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All right boys and girls, buckle yourselves in for a story and a half! After reading several good reviews about this place and feeling like we deserved a date night I took my husband to this place which brings shame to Japanese food. If I could march the manager through Acland Street ringing a massive bell screaming "SHAME" intermittently, it would not even come close to the awfulness of this evening. We sat down and had our order taken at 8:15. Drink arrived promptly, followed shortly after by a dish of onions and salt with chopped spring onions and four bites of soft shell crab which managed to leak out more oil than the Exxon oil spill. Seriously; a couple of seals and at least 5 penguins could have drowned in my mouth. After 20 minutes and some frantic glancing around at diners who had arrived after us and had received their food and watching them eat it, my scallops arrived. Warm shells, with cold hard parmesan cheese which had hardened as it had most likely been sitting on the counter since before the price of Bitcoin reached three dollars. Drowned in warm yellow salt sauce (which required two glasses of water, no less) which somehow managed to taste exactly like béarnaise, were little cold scallops, which made me message my colleague to anticipate my absence from work tomorrow due to the food poisoning I am likely to receive later this evening. Simultaneously tasting both raw and inedible, it made me consider whether I was supposed to be eating the shells, as they appeared to the only thing that had been "flame grilled". Wagyu beef gyoza would have made sense if it had not come with a ridiculous smothering of more sodium; each bite making us wish that we had stayed home and microwaved our goldfish and drowned them in soy sauce and however much salt they use for the local swimming pool. Once that dish was finished we were left questioning the arrogance of the person who decided that $22 was an appropriate price for 6 dumplings in Melbourne. I suppose we have to spend all of our money before we die from sodium poisoning. But to hurry us along to an early grave, the tuna tataki arrived with the salt usually reserved for flotation therapy tanks. Tuna chunks which look like they'd fallen off a burns victim sitting above shaved daikon obliterated with more of this salt concentrate which was supposedly miso. So now we wait for the remainder of the food to arrive with my husband informing me that the odds were ever in my favour as this night had now turned into the Hunger Games, and I may actually have to consume one of the aforementioned penguins in St Kilda Beach. At this point the sun had set and it was past 9PM and we had begun a discussion as to what song from my iPhone to set as my alarm for 9:15PM to celebrate the first hour at this God forsaken place which probably should have been marked by a cannon. We watched diners who had arrived after us, pay for their meal that they had finished while we were still waiting for two more dishes to be served and contemplated going over and eating what they had left behind. At this point we flagged down a waitress to ask where the rest of our salt, sorry, dishes were. She informed us that she would check with the kitchen and we considered where we should eat for our actual dinner or whether we should drive down to Coles and buy bottled water by the pallet. Miraculously our two slabs of eggplant arrived, soaked in more sodium and resulting in my wishing that I could have tried and voluntarily failed to import heroin into Indonesia to get this taste out of my mouth. We asked the waitress why we were still waiting for our dragon rolls an hour after to which she explained that the kitchen times the food to arrive one after the other so that we can enjoy our food, which was true for the other diners who were probably at home writing semi decent reviews, but not for us. She went to check with her manager at which point I had given up and refused to volunteer for tribute in this absurd Battle Royale starvation game where they feed you salt until you collapse, twitching on the ground and collapse into dust from dehydration. Went to the counter to pay as I had thoroughly given up at this point. The hostess had offered us a 10% discount on our food as I was thoroughly contemplating whether to set this place on fire, if only to heat up the scallops for the other diners and I asked to speak to the manager. The manager came out and decided to glare at us because we had interrupted him from his study of how to make sure that diners do not return, and his in depth thesis of how customer service and empathy is anathema to him. He informed me in his French accent that he would only be able to give us 10% off our bill of $113, which did not even cover my one drink and he was sorry that it took the kitchen over an hour to make our food, in a restaurant that was less than a third full. TL;DR? Go to a pet store. Buy a goldfish. Microwave it and eat it. Do not come here. read more

I was really looking forward to trying Ichi Ni Izakaya on the recommendation of a number of friends. Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with me knows of my love for Japanese food, specifically izakaya fare, however I was quite disappointed with our experience. On the up side, the restaurant is in a fantastic location in St Kilda that would make it a great choice during summer. Service is friendly and we did not have to wait too long for a table. However, the food was expensive for the quality received. The sauce on the tuna tataki was REALLY salty and did not do much for it at all, the tempura did not have that light crispiness that authentic tempura has and instead was doughy and of all the yakitori dishes we ordered, only the pork belly stood out in a good way as the tori and tsukune were bland and the beef tasted like cheap chuck steak that had been cooked at left to sit at room temperature before being served. The grilled vegetables were nothing special and the tofu was also chewy. It's a shame, because I really wanted to like Ichi Ni, but honestly I don't think we'll be back. read more

What an awesome location for some sashimi and beer by the bay, watching the sun go down. Ichni Ni is perfect for whatever your occasion may be. There were families enjoying sashimi platters, footballers imbibing on beers, friends catching up and plenty of hot couples on dates. There is plenty of open air seating with heating or if you prefer something a little more intimate the dark interior may be more your style. We thoroughly enjoyed our sashimi platter, grilled salmon maki, miso soup and beef curry. The seafood yakitori was a tiny bit over cooked and the green tea tiramisu would have benefited from a little more Kahlua. The chocolate spring rolls were fun. Service was attentive and the ambiance was very inviting. We will be back. read more

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Came here on my own, just looking for something simple and easy. I agree with a lot of the previous reviews in that the restaurant looks very cool both in and out. The sushi and sashimi is OK. I found the menu selection very limited compared with my other experiences around my home town. Introduce a list whereby you just check against what you like rather than having just a few menu items that are safe and not adventurous. If you advertise spicy, make sure it is. Not just having a tiny amount of sliced chili in in the sauce. Also, if someone is sitting at the sushi bar, obviously on their own, it would be nice if the sushi chef engaged with the clientele rather than turning a back to them to avoid contact. Again, the food is OK but the location is excellent. Worth eating at just for the whole St Kilda experience. read more

As it's not local to me, I've only been here twice. But loved it both times and wish it was closer to me. When eating there we just selected a group of dishes from the Tapas, Yakitori and sushi sections of the menu and all shared the delicious food. It's really good for taking people who haven't eaten Japanese food as they can taste a lot of different dishes without breaking the bank. read more

This restaurant has a lot of great points! Walk in the door through another door on to your right, (you can order take away on the first entry area) Great view Unique table setting indoor - sunken seats or the elevated " house", great for groups or intimate dinner and has a lovely oriental feel. Bar seating - wrap around sashimi kitchen style, perfect for friendly catch up or lunch Outdoor seating- of course, to soak up the sun and view Reasonably priced, lovely staff, delicious Japanese food. read more

I was lucky enough to have visited Ichi Ni on a warm summer night and the open design of the restaurant was a perfect compliment. We had a booth table where we could see the kitchen and the rest of the diners which was nice but was a little short on space. We had booked for 7 people, and had 4 squished in on one side and 3 on the other. The food was great. We had both the tuna and beef tataki, the prawns in mayo, chicken yakitori, vegetable tempura and a selection of sushi and sashimi. The tempura itself was tasty but it came accompanied with a mayonnaise-type sauce which I don't think worked as well as the traditional and the taste of one of the hand rolls was lost in an overpowering hot sauce (can't recall which one). Overall the food was very enjoyable. The selection of sake was a nice surprise. Not having a lot of sake experience, the taste descriptions on the menu were a great help. We finished the meal with a bottle of the Tateyama Ginrei. Delicious! read more

Hip location, nice service, but the sashimi was below average. If you want high quality traditional Japanese this is not the place for you. If you are looking for a funky beachside restaurant with good rolls and westernized sushi-- go! read more

Very cool and trendy atmosphere with views of the beach. It was quite busy when I went on a Friday night- saw some AFL players. Without a reservation, I sat at the sushi bar, which I always find as a neat place to be seated. I ordered the agedashi tofu and pork belly as starters and I definitely recommend the two. The rainbow roll had a the most delicious lemon sauce, and the Ichi ni roll was good as well. A tad bit pricey if you're just looking for a casual or quick sushi roll. read more

great views and food always excellent.. love the Miso and the Gyoza but everything we have tried has been good.. only been at lunch mid week but service always prompt and friendly..also a great spot to then have a walk after lunch down to the stkilda foreshore.. read more