Sushi Sabi

Sushi Sabi is a Japanese restaurant inside Market Plaza on Barry Road in Chipping Norton, working through sushi rolls, fresh sashimi, poke bowls and bento boxes with a family-friendly, casual feel. For dog owners the play is the outside seating: dogs are generally welcome at the outdoor tables, which turns a plaza sushi run into a meal you can share with the dog.

The dog setup

As a plaza restaurant the dog space is the outdoor seating, not the indoor room, so plan on the outside tables being the dog zone and keep your dog leashed and settled beside the chair. Bring a travel water bowl, because this is a shopfront restaurant rather than a set-up dog cafe, and if the outside tables are taken it is better to treat the visit as takeaway eaten at the table than to argue the point. Confirm the setup with staff on arrival, since plaza seating changes with the seasons.

Worth knowing

The menu runs to handcrafted rolls, salmon sashimi, poke bowls, chicken katsu bento and a surf and turf selection, with a solid list of vegetarian-friendly plates and halal meat across the menu. Doors open from 11am daily, with the kitchen closing between 7:30pm and 8pm depending on the day. The venue sits alongside Coles and the rest of the Market Plaza shops, so a food stop folds easily into a shopping trip.

Getting there and parking

The restaurant is at Shop 12/45 Barry Road, within Market Plaza. Parking is free and untimed in the plaza carpark, which makes it one of the easier errand-and-lunch combinations on this side of Liverpool, and the walk from car to table is short enough for an older dog.

Close by with the dogs

Chipping Norton Lake is the nearby leg-stretch: council rules keep dogs on lead along the foreshore paths and out of the lake water entirely, and it is not an off-leash reserve. For other dog-friendly food stops in the suburb, Cream & Co covers coffee in the same plaza pocket and Greek Kouzina Corner is the other local kitchen that takes dogs.

More options are on the NSW dog friendly restaurants guide and the Chipping Norton destination page.

Pepsi: a poke bowl travels better than a bento on a plaza table, and it keeps the fish handling to a minimum with a hopeful dog at elbow height.