But as soon as we arrived, there was a boo-boo. The entrance is pretty imposing (it’s right at the end of the Sydney harbour pier, you have to go up a slightly scary lift, before entering some glitzy doors), and as we approached reception, it turned out they had no record of our booking. I get that mistakes happen, but they had actually rang the day before to confirm the booking, and I must say the maitre d’ was less than gracious - he did stare at us for a little while wondering whether we looked neat enough for his restaurant.
The room itself wasn’t quite what I had expected. A lot smaller than I had imagined, the entirety of the restaurant (walls, ceilings) is lined with mirrors to make the most of its location right opposite the Sydney Opera House – and the view is pretty spectacular. However, the way the room is designed, with a row of tables right by the windows, with another row right by the wall, means that there is a constant corridor of waiters floating in between – and as someone sitting against the wall, this got a bit irritating towards the end of the evening.
I struggled to choose, for the first two courses in particular, but started with the sea pearls – a sort of mini tasting plate of the sea, including abalone with dashi jelly, tuna tartare with wasabi flowers, tapioca wrapped fish with silver leaf, caviar wrapped scallop, and the last one I can’t remember (although I remember it was actually my favourite!). As always with these things, a bit hit and miss – the tapioca in particular a miss.
Dave helped himself to a first course of mud crab congee, which was absolutely delicious, but was 100% not congee (we found maybe 5 grains of rice in it) – it was more like crab in crab stock. The picture looks quite gross actually, particularly as the lighting meant I really couldn’t use flash:
Second course for me was the real disappointment, made worse by the $25 supplement attached to it: lobster with lobster and tapioca dumpling, with lobster and almond cream/foam on top. This for me was the perfect example of playing too much with the food, to the extent that although the ideas are interesting, the end result is not good to eat. The kitchen seems a little too obsessed with tapioca (my second course with it in!!), and the whole dish was like a lobster flavoured mess with no lobster texture actually in the dish.
It did not help that Dave’s second course was absolutely delicious, and had a very simple but successful combination of pork belly with shitake mushrooms, with tofu. Food envy!
Third course for me was much better: salt-water poached duck breast, served with duck confit, with a little slice of abalone (another ingredient the kitchen is a little obsessed with ). It apparently also had periwinkle flowers and other gubbins on top, which really were a bit unnecessary.
And to my absolute surprise, I thought the best dish of the night was the dessert: the famous 8-texture chocolate cake, which was really quite clever. There was biscuity crunch, then a bit of marshmallow, then some cold hard chocolate, then some hot chocolate ganache, and then a little bit of hazelnut (although I suspect that Nutella may be their secret ingredient :p)
So my little round up of the big guns – extremely pleased and surprised with Tetsuya’s, and ultimately a bit disappointed with Quay. Tetsuya’s manages to put complex and interesting ideas together, but somehow manages to execute them simply – the tian of ocean trout being the perfect example. Whereas at Quay, I felt the food was over fussy, with way too many things on one plate. Both are definitely once in a lifetime Sydney experiences though, I had a lot of fun anticipating both meals.
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