fine dining in Sydney

Quay

Quay is located at the "Overseas Passenger Terminal" between the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. It has an unbeatable location, and is very pretty and modern inside.

We were seated at what appeared to be one of the best tables, in a small sub-room jutting out into the harbour. However, our server's attitude was a bit off-putting; throughout the evening she was overly snarky. For instance, when I asked for regular coffee, she pointed out that there was no such thing, only "real coffee" drinks like espresso.

The food was generally quite good, but there were one or two (of of eight) courses that I was not that impressed with. My experience was not improved by the extremely slow pacing of the meal, especially as I was a bit sleepy to begin with.

Anyway, onto the food!

I ordered a "Quay Butterfly" cocktail which had limoncello and butterscotch schnapps in it. That sounds terrible but it was sweet and yummy.



The first course was a very cute (and delicious) amuse; it contained two kinds of raw fish (hamachi and I think tai?) with fish eggs (not sure what kind but they were very good) and horseradish cream:



My only possible complaint would be that the horseradish flavor was not sharp enough, but I like my horseradish quite strong.

Next up was another raw fish dish; bluefin toro with six tiny accompaniments:



One was a bubble of soy sauce-like liquid, another was a smudge of edible silver, and a third was caviar. I've forgotten what the remaining three were, so they must have been less interesting. The fish was good but I only liked maybe half of the accompaniments.

Then, we were served a confit of squid and octopus, in a squid consomme:



This dish tasted fine, but wasn't that interesting (both to look at, and to taste).

I liked the next dish but D did not. It came with crispy pork belly, abalone, and silken tofu w/ mushrooms. I think I just like tofu better than he does:



Neither of us were very happy with the next course; quail with chestnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, truffle custard, and bitter chocolate pudding:



All of the components tasted great by themselves, but the dish did not seem to come together well as a whole. I enjoyed the truffle custard by itself, but the bitter chocolate pudding especially tended to drown out nearly all of the other flavors. Ironically I think this is one of their signature dishes.

Next was a confit of lamb with pinenuts, artichoke, sunflower seeds, rosemary, hops, and okra shoots. It was fine but nothing to write home about:



There were two desserts; the first contained jackfruit shaved ice and custard apple ice cream:



I thought the presentation was nice and I enjoyed the tropical fruit flavor. It worked well as a palate cleanser, too.

The second dessert was perhaps my favorite course of the evening. It was a beautifully arranged plate of raspberries, violets (again, edible), almonds, and vanilla cream, with a sugar "crisp" of sorts:



It tasted as good as it looks. Nuff said.

Finally, we were served tea and coffee (or espresso, rather) and petit fours; chocolate wrapped caramel (yummy) and some kind of nutty macaroon:



To sum up, the food was quite good, the service was so-so, and the views were incredible. I'm glad we went, but would not recommend unconditionally.

Tetsuya's

Tetsuya's was something of a different experience. The service was impeccable; our water was always full (and I drink even more water than usual when travelling), my napkin was always folded, and most impressively, the pace was properly adjusted with no prompting when it became clear that we were faster than the average diners. I felt the food was more consistently excellent, as well.

We started with a mushroom and chestnut soup, which had a strong Japanese flavor:



It was simple but delicious. D thought it may have been a bit too simple, though.

The soup was followed by a "softly smoked" salmon, topped with a mostly-cooked egg yolk covered in caviar, encircled by a ring of cream:



It's unfortunate that they smoked the salmon, because otherwise I might have liked this dish very much. As it was, I ate nearly half of it anyway.

Next was a savory custard with crab and leek:



It was basically like a fancy chawan mushi. I liked it, but again, perhaps slightly too simple.

We were then served a raw shrimp salad with cilantro. There were dabs of oil on the plate, but I've forgotten what they were:



I liked this fine with the creamy sauce, but D liked it better without.

The next course was Tetsuya's signature ocean trout, with a black sesame crust, and a salad of konbu, apple, and daikon:



I was surprised by the pink color of the trout, but apparently it was a special Tasmanian trout. Again, too bad they cooked it...I kept eating it for the sesame crust (delicious) but eventually gave the rest to D. I ate all of the salad, though.

This was followed by the least impressive course, a terrine of crab wrapped in seaweed, with avocado sauce:



I thought that the crab texture was destroyed by making it into a terrine; instead of being pleasantly chewy, it had a texture similar to kamaboko (fishcake), which made it too spongy for my taste.

I didn't try this barramundi, but D liked it second best to the trout of all the courses that evening:



I did eat the spatchcock (young chicken) with edamame and braised daikon. The waiter said it was served with "bread sauce", but I'm not sure what that is or what it's supposed to taste like:



The chicken was tender and fairly flavorful. However, it paled in comparison to the next course, which was a wagyu beef, served on a mushroom, topped with a soy sauce-flavored jelly. It came with wasabi, lime, and sea salt, and the waiter recommended we try them each with the meat:



I loved this dish; it was my favorite overall. I ended up using generous dabs of all three condiments and they made the beef taste amazing.

At this point we started with the desserts. First up was a spiced pear sorbet with orange jelly, and a custard apple chai "bavarois". We were meant to use the spoon to mix up the chai before drinking it:



It was interesting in concept, but I wouldn't say I was super impressed with the taste; it was almost bland. I like my tea flavors very tea-ish.

The second dessert was much better; it was billed as a "strawberry shortcake" with vanilla bean ice cream, but was entirely liquid:



The lower layer had a cake-y flavor but had a grainy texture like applesauce. It was really creative, and happily, it was delicious too.

The last dessert was a chocolate "chiboust" with lemon curd and coffee marshmallow:



The flavors sounded strange together but actually went well, although the lemon taste was quite weak. I preferred the strawberry shortcake, myself.

The petit fours were quite good; I especially liked the green tea marshmallow, and the buttery coffee-flavored bite-sized cake wasn't half bad either. The macaroon was good, but French macaroons are increasingly common these days:



Overall, I liked Tetsuya's significantly better than Quay. If I return to Sydney (if I have enough lead time) I'll probably try to secure another reservation at Tetsuya's, but I don't think I will go to Quay again, at least not before I've tried some of Sydney's other fine restaurants.