Sashimi, wagyu and sake – step inside Broadbeach’s show-stopping new Japanese restaurant Nigiwai
When it comes to Japanese dining on the Gold Coast, we’re pretty spoilt for choice. Broadbeach newcomer Nigiwai Japanese Restaurant is the latest to join the fold, bringing an impressive spread of sashimi, elevated sushi creations, premium wagyu, bubbling hot pots and sake to The Oasis. Add a gorgeous lantern-lit dining room and a menu that seems to keep going just when you think you’ve reached the end, and there’s plenty here to get excited about.
Nigiwai Japanese Restaurant is immediately captivating. Step inside and your eyes are drawn to glowing Japanese lanterns set against dark timber, flashes of green velvet, intricate bonsai trees and tables filled to the brim with colourful plates of sushi and sashimi. It’s inviting and beautifully detailed, with the kind of atmosphere that makes you want to settle in, order with absolutely no regard for how much table space you have, and see where the night takes you.
The name Nigiwai loosely translates to vibrancy and liveliness, a nod to the energy created when people gather around a table. Glasses clinking, chopsticks darting between plates and laughter filling the air. It’s exactly the kind of dining experience owner Chai Aramworapaisan hopes to create here, with a menu designed for sharing and plenty to discover along the way.
You’ll want to arrive hungry.
To call the menu extensive would be something of an understatement. Beautifully presented, its glossy, image-filled pages feel more like a culinary coffee-table book than a menu, with sashimi, sushi, wagyu, bubbling nabe hot pots, ramen, donburi and traditional clay-pot rice all vying for your attention.
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Start at the lighter end with sashimi before making your way to some of Nigiwai’s more playful sushi creations. The signature Nigiwai Roll layers crispy fried prawn with avocado, cream cheese, spicy mayonnaise and sweet tare, while Sushi Truffle Shots pair Japanese rice and creamy truffle sauce with your choice of salmon, unagi or Hokkaido scallop. Wagyu pops up throughout, from tartare and sushi to steak served with mushrooms, garlic, vegetables and pickled wasabi.
From there, things get heartier. Nabe hot pots come bubbling to the table loaded with either wagyu and vegetables or a seafood combination of prawns, New Zealand mussels, squid and kingfish. There’s tonkatsu and miso ramen, donburi and kama meshi – Japanese rice cooked and served in a hot clay pot – while a small pasta selection throws in a curveball with tom yum kung combining prawns, lemongrass, kaffir lime and chilli, and another pairing Hokkaido scallops and salmon roe with a creamy shrimp-roe sauce.
Japanese flavours make their way into the glass, too. The cocktail list features a lychee yuzu martini, Roku Sakura spritz and ume blossom sour, alongside the crisp Tokyo whisky highball and a Japanese whisky old fashioned.
Nigiwai is the kind of place that calls for a full table and an appetite to match. There’s a lot to explore, plenty to share and almost certainly something you’ll spot on the menu and wish you’d ordered. The good news? That’s reason enough to come back.
Head to The Directory for opening times.
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