Northern Light Yakitori Bar

Perfect to sit out the street for a Sunday lunch sampling one of the chef choice menus. Try the tuna sashimi and dry style ramen, both excellent!

Surprisingly very quiet on a Friday evening. Good meal though :) We had the yakitori sampler banquet, it’s a realky good way to taste all four different type of meat. The meatball with sweet soy and egg yolk was delicious. Following the yakitori is a delicious plate of spanner crab soba. It was the right mix of buttery and tangy.

Northern Light was amazing the night we lucked upon a last minute booking (yes, you can book and you don’t need to be table of 8 or more).
The service was extremely attentive, the staff incredibly affable, the meals out with really good timing and explained in depth. The wine list was also explained well and we were given help to pick a bottle.
I won’t go through every dish, they’ve been covered before here but the spiced prawn cracker small plate, grilled duck ssam, beef wagyu large plate, chicken and beef yakitori were fantastic. You can run 6 – 7 dishes in at a reasonable pace easily. Each dish was introduced with where they’d sourced their meats, eggs, veggies from detailed. It’s not make or break for me but knowing somewhere like Northern Light sources meats handled ethically and with respect is a plus.
Each dish was unique and while not overpowering let the highlight ingredients come through. The yakitori although small in size had a smooth smoked flavour, the meat cooked perfectly.
Desert of the broken ice cream sandwich came with a big pour of dessert wines they’d just started selling on the house. One of the staff tasted with us and hung around to chat for 5 minutes as the night ended.
The service, social atmosphere, and food here was in complete contrast to what we experienced just on a month ago from a similarly priced restuarant along Smith Street. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending this to couples or groups of 4 – 6 (there’s larger tables vs. the bar seating at the front).

Thrilled the trend of bar dining seems to be growing in Melbourne.
There’s nothing more inviting than grabbing a seat up at the bar and indulging in some exceptionally quality food and drink while engaging in occasional yet genuine banter with the staff.
Northern Lights features flavoursome and approachable mixed asian cuisine, which lends itself to either sharing or not… all paired with some fabulously chosen wine and deliciously prepared cocktails.
The city end of Smith Street has quite a few new and brilliant food options, and I’ve happily parked it up at Northern Lights numerous time in the last few months. A definite regular.
Local love.

The concept of Northern Light, a recent opening on Smith Street from chef Adam Liston and Glen Bagnara (previously at Chester White), was to have a bar that serves «food that I wanted to eat» as Liston himself puts it. The exact same statement can go for me as well, this is food that I could easily, and would gladly, eat any and every day of the week. The story might sound a little familiar, a stripped back bar space with nibbles and larger plates to share, but what rises Northern Light above the crowd is Liston’s food.
The former Gigibaba spot fits perfectly with the laid back atmosphere they are going for and Smith Street’s crawl from industrial to gentrified as a whole; with exposed brick, bare light bulbs pendulously hanging from the ceiling (the inspiration behind the name Northern Light) and a quick nip and tuck here and there from the previous tenant. There are tables on the footpath, a handful at the front and back, but the focus here, as befitting the bar concept, are the stools around the bar.
Liston’s food has been influenced by his culinary history, with Asian elements coming from his time in Shanghai, and the attention to detail and technique from his time as head chef at Raymond Capaldi’s Hare & Grace then The Commoner. The passion for Asian, especially Japanese, cuisine is easily seen on the menu, but it would be too simplistic to say this is just ‘Asian’ food.
The togarashi (a Japanese spice mix with a kick of chilli) dusted whitebait is a must-​order with an ice cold beer; crispy and salty and begging to be dipped into the crustacean aioli. One of the highlights of the menu are the various skewers, grilled over Japanese binchotan white charcoal, and served with a generous squeeze of Kewpie-​style mayonnaise. Juicy wagyu beef, marinated in umami heavy miso and tonkatsu (think a Japanese take on BBQ/​Worcestershire/​brown sauce); chicken with the sweetness of honey and tartness of yuzu; or shitake with ponzu if you are leaning towards the vegetarian.
Joining the skewers on the grill are beautiful fresh scampi; savouring the tender meat as you scoop it out of the shell will make you wish you had ordered double. A similar pleasure is found in the chilli crab, where you will find yourself cracking shells and claws to tease each morsel of meat out, possibly spraying the rest of the table with juices in the process. I admit I never used to be a fan of working that hard to enjoy a meal, but there is something rewarding and animalistic about hunting out every last bite. The hit of chilli and XO sauce with the crab matches well with a chicken dish, pairing the delicate meat with a spicy kimchi, one of my favourite plates of the night with the fresh acidity and heat of the kimchi.
While much of the menu has a distinct Asian skew to it, there are some dishes that are unique in their own right. Paper thin slices of bresaola with egg, wasabi mayonnaise, parmesan and a crispy nest of potato threads, shows the delicate balance between cuisines and ingredients. A serve of high marble score wagyu is one of the best pieces of red meat I have eaten for a while, served with a panko-​crusted king mushroom, a mushroom that I am usually not a fan of because of its tendency to turn into a rubbery nightmare but that was not the case here, and broken sheets of nori. A simple but delicious plate, the focus clearly on highlghting the quality of the beef without distracting from it.
The desserts look deceptively simple, but with a highly technical nature to them. A broken ice cream sandwich is one of Liston’s signature dishes, this new variation features a short and crumbly chocolate sablé biscuit and a rich, but not overpowering, chocolate mousse balanced by a lightly infused matcha (green tea) ice cream drizzled with that ubiquitous salted caramel. For the citrus lovers, like myself, a pool of smooth yuzu curd is dressed with white chocolate and shards of impossibly thin sablé. A citrus curd always stirs memories of childhood for me, with that tightrope walk of rich creaminess and tart acidity fading the world around into shades of grey. Another dessert sees humble rice pudding elevated into the finer realms of dining, with a crown of summer berries and laced with umeboshi (a fermented apricot-​like fruit) essence.
The concept of trying to open a bar that serves amazing food is not new, but Northern Light pulls it off when so many others fail. The reason being that the focus here is on the food first and foremost, and Liston’s cooking takes influences from Asia and beyond to create a unique menu. While the atmosphere and service is casual, the food is taken seriously with quality ingredients and a light touch when balancing flavours and textures. Amongst a crowded Smith Street, Northern Light stands out, whether propped up at the bar for a cold beer and a few skewers, or settled into a table to graze through the whole menu, this is a must visit Melbourne hotspot.

Only tried one dish but it was amazing. The cookbook shop guy around the corner told us to check this place out. Glad we did. Sat outside and had a wonderful experience. We got wine and split a quail that was served atop a spicy red sauce. So good. The staff is friendly and their chef is cranking out some really good stuff.