Operator San – Melbourne – Japanese cafe near Queen Victoria Market

Operator San is located close to Queen Victoria Market. It is one of many cafés to experience when walking from Elizabeth Street to the markets. Operator San is a Japanese cuisine café serving a lot of breakfast dishes with some all-day dishes. I opted for their Breakfast Set and Mochi Waffle plus their Melon Soda Expresso, but felt I should have asked for some recommendations.

Highlights	An array of genuine Japanese dishes that use fresh ingredients to create some very interesting combinations
Cost	$60-80 for lunch for two people (with drinks)
Location	121 Therry Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Website	https://operatorsan.com.au/

Operator San opened in 2024 near Queen Victoria Market. It’s an interesting looking café, which I’d been meaning to try for some time. We visited on a Sunday and managed to secure a table. It’s worth calling out that last orders are taken before 3:30 PM.

Operator San gives me the vibe of an American-Japanese diner, but it definitely has more Japanese inspirations with its open kitchen and simple, wooden look-and-feel. I noticed a lot of Japanese people working there as well.

We ordered their Breakfast Set for $29, which came with slices of shokupan, sausages, runny eggs in teriyaki sauce, fruits with yogurt, potato salad and spinach salad. This was a very weird combination. I wasn’t quite sure how to eat this, but I found the shokupan bread being dipped into the runny eggs being a good mix. I asked the servers and they said there wasn’t any set rules.

We also ordered their Mochi Waffle for $28 which came with ice-cream and fruits such as strawberries, grape and peaches. This was a nice dish and you could taste the mochi in the waffle.

The weirdest item we ordered was the Melon Soda Expresso for $8, which was a mix of melon soda and coffee expresso. I don’t think they were meant to be combined, I wasn’t too thrilled to finish this drink, but at least I got my coffee hit for the day.

Overall, I thought the dishes were small, but they used great ingredients and there were good flavours. I wished I had ordered their Onigiri set, which looked really fascinating.

Please support the website by liking the article or subscribing to the mailing list. The review and the experience above are based on my own views. No commission, freebies or payments have been received.

Here are some of my recent articles: