Here’s a joke I’ve heard a few times from Tasmanian chefs: “Where’s the best place to eat local seafood in Hobart?” “Head to the airport and fly to Sydney or Melbourne.” Nice one. Very good. Never gets old. Like all great jokes, it’s also built on truth.

Broadly, fishers get a better price for their top catch in markets north of Bass Strait and long-established supply chains can be hard to access, even for Hobart restaurants happy to pay a premium for consistent product. “Visit Tasmania! We have farmed salmon and scallops and a ferry to MONA. Just don’t expect to eat any of our king crab or sashimi-grade tuna.”

But over the past two years, chefs Sophie Pope and Lachlan Colwill have been developing relationships with fishers and wholesalers to change that punchline. The best place to eat seafood in Hobart right now? The Lexus of Tasmania showroom. Yes, that Lexus, maker of cars. “You can leave your coat in the SUV’s boot” isn’t something I expected to hear at a restaurant serving 16 small courses on antique ceramics sourced from Kyoto.

The experience (which feels like a more appropriate word than “restaurant”) came about when Pope and Colwill were looking for a venue to showcase Tasmanian produce and practise omotenashi, the Japanese expression of wholehearted hospitality.

Photographer, chef and friend of the couple Luke Burgess had just the place: a stunning, 10-seat counter and open kitchen he was helping design for Lexus Hobart. Apparently, Lexus dealerships that invest in “extra activities”, such as a restaurant, are granted access to more cars by the global head office. Chefs get a nice deal on rent. Everybody wins.

“‘You can leave your coat in the SUV’s boot’ isn’t something I expected to hear at a restaurant serving 16 small courses on antique ceramics from Kyoto.”

The evening begins with a glass of fizz and the opportunity to mingle with other guests in the showroom, which is a handsome, Tasmanian oak-lined space in its own right. Feel free to take your drink in the driver’s seat of a $130,000 RZ450e.

Thirty minutes later, we’re called to the monolithic counter for the first pour of sake (matched drinks are included in the price) and three “hinnomaki” variety gooseberries, grown for Omotenashi by a nearby farm and coated in a lusciously smooth “shiraae” mixture of pounded tofu, sesame and miso.

“Feel free to run your finger through the sauce if you’re that way inclined,” says Colwill. Ah, good. This is going to be fun as well as delicious.

Next, a golden-hued “ichiban” dashi soup, humming with kelp and hongarebushi (sun-dried skipjack tuna) and the last peas of summer. Duke Ellington plays in the background and time slows down. The LX500d fades from my peripheral.

Rather than a rapid volley of one-bite sushi, the chefs take turns preparing and explaining each small course. When I visited in January, raw seafood highlights included silver trevally (both top loin and melting belly); sweet King George whiting brushed with shoyu dashi (like soy sauce, but not as rich); yellow-eye mullet with a warm lick of charcoal smoke; and firm, clean-flavoured tiger flathead sharpened by pickled nasturtium.

Gosh, it’s good stuff. Each course is an exercise in subtle manipulation, calibrating the ageing and seasoning to exponential degrees so the fish becomes something transcendental while still tasting very much of itself.

Beautifully marbled Robbins Island wagyu from north-west Tasmania, thinly sliced and served in a broth of sake, shiitake dashi and dried bonito, is the only meat course.

Breakout hit of the night is the cooling, vinegared sunomono dish, pretty with local cucumbers and their flowers, sour cherries, blueberries, raspberries and red currants. Laced with a dressing of shiso and fermented plum, each bite offers a new dimension of juice and tang.

Just as memorable is Pope’s mochi (Japan’s favourite chewy, glutinous rice cake) filled with cream and new-season apricot. It will also be some time before I taste another dessert as pure and soothing as her blackcurrant ice-cream.

Omotenashi is potentially more than a celebration of fish and fruit, though. With traditional restaurant models becoming increasingly cost-prohibitive for young owner-chefs, this could be a template for future dining. I’d be all for a pop-up in a Porsche shop. How about a modern Korean concept out the back of an Aesop? Or in a high-rise office space the landlord is struggling to lease?

Few chefs will ever be able to afford a Lexus, but more should be able to pay rent on an inner-city space where, like Pope and Colwill, they can pursue their ambitions. New ideas are what Australian dining needs, not the same old bistros and farmed salmon crudo.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine