Before opening an Asian fusion restaurant heavily featuring sushi, Anthony Butterfield had never actually eaten it before.

“For me, food has to be cooked,” Mr Butterfield said.

He and his business partner, Amad Ahad, opened Wasabi a year ago next month at 27 Washington Lane in Hamilton. The two have backgrounds in restaurants and hospitality.

In a nod to differing tastes, including Mr Butterfield’s, the restaurant offers traditional raw Japanese sushi but also cooked options such as shrimp dumplings, poke bowls and bento boxes.

It is now seeing 60 to 70 regulars a day, plus newcomers, and was recently able to add dinner service. The owners are hoping to also be open for breakfast at some point.

“Our most popular dish is drunken noodles,” Mr Butterfield said.

“What doesn’t it have in it?” Mr Ahad shrugged when asked. “It is one of our spicier dishes.”

The dish has noodles, bell pepper, garlic, scallions, onion, bamboo shoot, cherry tomato, basil leaves and a chilli brown sauce.

The spice level on the food can be dialled up or down. Patrons who really like to set their mouths on fire often ask for their food to be “4X” or “5X”, meaning really spicy. Sometimes customers experiment for days to find the right spice point for them.

“One lady came back eight times to get the heat level right,” Mr Butterfield said. “Finally she came in and said, right, I’m 5X.”

Ever since then she has always been known as 5X in the restaurant and will even place a telephone order saying: “Hello, it’s 5X here”.

Another customer is known affectionately as “Spicy Sue”.

Mr Ahad joked that his partner liked to “peer pressure” male customers into upping their spice game.

“I always say, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mr Butterfield said. “I know they will be back for more.”

The space across from La Trattoria Restaurant has had many uses over the years and has been a shoe shop and a custom T-shirt store, among other things.

Before Wasabi moved in, the one thing it had never been was a restaurant.

The building landlords were supportive of the owners’ plan to change the usage, but getting planning approval and then carrying out extensive renovations took months.

“To qualify for insurance we are not allowed to have an open flame,” Mr Ahad said. “So we had to put in an induction oven.”

For the sake of authenticity, they brought in five chefs from overseas, a process that also took time.

“We had to wait for immigration, like everyone else does,” Mr Butterfield said. “It took forever, but the process is what it is.”

The owners felt it was important to have experienced chefs from Asian countries cooking the food.

“Nothing comes out of a bottle or is frozen,” Mr Butterfield said. “Everything is made on the spot in the morning.”