“That place looks like a hotel lobby,” commented our Uber driver as my friend and I got into his car after dinner at James Parker Sushi & Sake, a prosaically named Japanese restaurant in Northbridge straddling the corner of James and Parker streets.

We laughed. I hadn’t noticed it previously, but he had a point. After dark and viewed from the street, the way that James Parker’s warm lighting backlit the restaurant’s concrete shell and timber accents gave it a real art installation quality. Maybe it’s just me, but the wooden hoops that line the centre of the room look like whale ribs. Which, naturally, led to thoughts of Moby Dick and how guests walking through this timber tunnel looked like they were being swallowed by a giant of the deep: ironic when you consider that at Japanese restaurants, it’s us eating the seafood.

As far as Japanese seafood goes, sushi is the genre’s top dogfish. If you wanted to get even more macro, sushi eaten in a reverential, fine-dining setting is accorded another level of reverence again. You will eat some very pleasing sushi at James Parker – as you’d hope from a restaurant with sushi in its name – yet ignoring the menu’s other seafood dishes would be unwise.

Dishes such as the dazzling blue swimmer chawanmushi ($22; a delicate, quivering steamed egg custard with sweet crabmeat buried beneath its surface) that is essential eating. Or the plate of tempura ($32) featuring two well-sized Skull Island prawns and veg draped in lacy batter. The scampi head jutting awkwardly out of your miso soup ($15) like a first-time jacuzzi user is there for theatrics: the real pay-off is the meatball of the crustacean’s precious flesh down below. Nigiyaka natto ($29) and its colourful payload of raw fish and the stringy, web-like fermented soybean natto presents like an oceanic beef tartare.

The seafood selection here is deep. Factor in the menu’s non-seafood items such as karaage chicken ($22) and slow-braised pork belly ($33) and the risk of FOMO is real. But all roads lead to sushi, made-to-order by Naoyuki Suzuki, the restaurant’s Chiba-born chef-partner. He’s usually behind the eight-seat sushi counter, pressing precision-cut seafood into bricks of vinegared rice to create individual nigiri and securing sushi rolls both fat and skinny (those dainty hosomaki!) with toasted seaweed embossed with the restaurant’s name.

James Parker, admittedly, isn’t the only WA restaurant serving bluefin, but it is one of the precious few that takes its “fish of the day” promise seriously. Ordering the daily white fish nigiri ($9) on back-to-back visits yielded sweet Exmouth pink snapper one day and savoury New Zealand scorpion fish briefly cured between sheets of kombu the next. Both were superb. Can’t do raw seafood? Consider cooked toppings such as Freo occy ($9) and sea eel ($10) finished with a dab of sweetened soy sauce, nikiri. Or the cured and seared mackerel ($25) that turns what many might consider a trashy baitfish into treasure.

There’s also a brick of tamago ($8; sweetened egg omelette) that’s as big as a forefinger. (Generously proportioned toppings, incidentally, help put nigiri prices into context.) Traditionally, tamago was the de facto “dessert” at sushi restaurants, but James Parker closes dinner out with more conventional, Japanese-influenced sweets. Think a matcha tiramisu ($18) that nicely balances the green tea’s bitterness against plush mascarpone, plus a fit houjicha pudding ($15) highlighting the roasted tea’s earthiness and versatility. Or maybe you just want another squiz at the stellar list of sakes?

While WA’s Japanese dining options get ever more specialised, high-end sushi remains a blind spot. (Please don’t take this is a slight against shopping centre sushi: I dig crisp chicken hand rolls as much as the next person.) James Parker is one of the few places daring to serve – and charge – for the good stuff. Yes, you can drop some serious yen here, but you can also swing by, order your favourite nigiri, parlay with kindly staff and then disappear into the night. Much like a hotel lobby, actually.