The article is structured into three parts: the first part sets the stage for the
theoretical principle of Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the fold, demonstrating how it relates
to the formation and operation of the Japanese restaurant as an exotic genre. The second
part situates the theoretical movement of the fold within the framework of ‘whiteness’
to examine how the Japanese restaurant ‘works’ in a ‘white’ Australia. The last part
then provides an analysis of my examples of providers’ practices and dialogues, to
argue that the fold metaphor allows us to understand a new mode of exotic images and
representations that characterise the Japanese restaurant in contemporary Australia