At Robata, a Japanese grill restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD, pastry chef Sayaka Otsu is quietly refining what diners expect from dessert.

While the menu has long balanced Japanese flavours with European techniques, it’s Otsu’s fresh mochi—filled with frozen parfaits—that now anchors her dessert offering.

“I worked in an office in Japan. So, since I moved to Australia, my chef career started. First, I worked in cookery as a chef, but I always wanted to focus on pastry,” says Sayaka, who began her hospitality career in savoury kitchens at Crown Melbourne before transitioning into pastry in 2018.

That shift was fuelled by both passion and persistence: “I studied a course on my day off work to learn the basic skills and then moved into patisserie.”

After gaining hands-on experience at Nobu Melbourne, where she was first introduced to mochi, Sayaka deepened her technical skills by volunteering in production kitchens on her days off.

The mochi she now makes at Robata is a culmination of those years of practice, balancing temperature, texture, and flavour in a high-speed process.

“You have to quickly stretch the dough when it’s hot because once it becomes cold, it’s hard to mould,” she explains.

“I prepare the insert in the chiller to be very frozen so I can quickly wrap the dough around it. It is all about speed.”

Though mochi is central to her work at Robata, Sayaka’s pastry interests are broad.

“I enjoy making everything, but my favourite dessert to prepare is mousse. I also love the plating of desserts; I always want it to look beautiful.”

Her plated desserts often bring together Japanese and European elements in subtle, elegant ways.

“Cheesecake is a traditional European dessert, but if I add yuzu then it can become more Japanese,” she says.

“It’s about introducing one ingredient like black sesame, Sakura, or matcha to help bring the two cultures together.”

This philosophy is evident in Robata’s mochi offerings, where flavours rotate between combinations such as yuzu and dark chocolate, Earl Grey and milk chocolate, and peanut butter with house-made ganache.

Flavour experimentation plays a key role in her creative process, and her vision for the future is rooted in accessibility and innovation: “I hope to be able offer mochi for take away to our customers, so they can enjoy it at home too,” she says.

“I’ve seen mochi with traditional fillings or with ice-cream, but I’ve never seen it made with cream or ganache filling before. I think people will really love it!”