Quay comes with a big reputation. As well as being Australia’s most decorated restaurant, with three hats, it’s regularly included on lists of Australia’s top restaurants, coming in at number three recently in the Australian Financial Review’s top 100 restaurants in Australia. Eating there is on a lot of people’s bucket list.
But is it as good as the hype? After all, it has slipped out of the top 50 on the prestigious San Pellegrino World’s best restaurants list to 58 (down from 48 in 2013, but up two from last year’s ranking of 60).
The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the eating.
Quay impresses before you’ve even tasted the food: it’s difficult not to be goggle-eyed at the views.
The dining room juts out like an eyrie overlooking Sydney Harbour, with full views (not glimpses) of the Opera House and bridge. Some days the outlook is blocked by the bloated cruise ships parked at the overseas passenger terminal, but luckily not on the day of our lunch.
We are seated in the middle of the dining room, and even after many years of living in Sydney it’s still a thrill to get a ringside seat in front of the Opera House, particularly on a warm winter’s day with its sails glinting in the sun.
Food with a view can often be disappointing. A brilliant view can give the kitchen a licence to be lazy: “Look! Look over there at the Opera House while we place this boiled duck with sickly sauce in front of you!”
But, luckily, as well as having serious views, the food at Quay is incredible: complex, daring, inventive, gorgeous, playful and assured. Close to perfection.
Choices for lunch are three ($150) or four courses ($175). There is also a nine-course tasting menu. But unless you are planning on rolling down to the Opera House and lounging around the steps like a harbour seal afterwards, it’s better to stick to three or four courses. The dishes are small but not mean. You’ll feel satisfied without having to undo a notch on your belt.
“What do you recommend?” we asked the waiter. He was definitive: “Try the congee or the wagyu. And definitely select the pig jowl.”
Texture is the thing at Quay. Sharp and soft ingredients are mixed, runny and hard.
Our amuse-bouche sets the tone for the meal: raw shaved artichoke and artichoke puree, celeriac crumb, toasted macadamia nuts and Manjimup truffles. All seasonal and very light. There are lovely mother-of-pearl spoons placed by our plates and we scoop it up in a couple of bites.
Our palates are brought back down to earth with wonderful thick chunks of chewy bread with a hard crust and spread with butter and salt.
It’s the last plain and robust thing we’ll eat. Every dish is delicate, demanding that you eat it slowly and savour tastes and sensations that seem so painstakingly put together.
I order the wagyu, which looks unlike any I’ve seen before. Instead of a hunk of meat, it resembles the floor of an autumn forest – the Blackmore cut is raw and smoked, giving it a lovely pink colour. It has been shaved into curls and layered over horseradish sour cream, fermented rye crisps and raw funghi. It tastes earthy. Once again texture and taste compete – the dish is both crunchy and soft with a slight aftertaste of wasabi.
Chef Peter Gilmore’s Asian take on Oz cuisine (or maybe that should be an Oz take on Asian cuisine) runs all through the menu. The congee of mud crab, palm heart, egg yolk emulsion is salty with a sea-like taste broken up by the sweet chunks of crab, while in the next course of XO Sea, the very salty Chinese-influenced XO stock is brought to the table in an iron tea pot and poured over seafood of – once again – competing textures. Delicate morsels of octopus, cuttlefish, prawns, clams and scallops and the “sea” of butter are given an extra crunch with the jamon iberico garnish.
The XO sauce is a complex addition to the seafood: Quay makes a roasted scallop consommé which is used as a base. It then makes a roasted paste from ginger, garlic and chilli with more scallop and jamón until it is a dark red. It’s a heady brew.
A broth was also brought to the table and poured over my confit pig jowl, which was as delicious and tender as the waiter promised. Warm and salty, it was sort of like (very) high-end comfort food.
However, my dining companion wasn’t so enamoured of his third course.
The smoked oyster crackling on the Flinders Island lamb, native coastal greens, hatsuka radish, eggplant and capers was a little too strong and overpowering for him – and as a consequence, the brown curl of the oyster crackling was the only thing left on our plates.
Then for dessert – the course that Quay is famous for, having been featured in the 2010 series of MasterChef.
There are other desserts on the menu apart from the Snow Egg, but if it’s your first time here this is the dessert you must order. It’s beautiful to look at, and even better to eat. Like a treasure brought back from Narnia, the egg sits perfectly proportioned on a bed of soft seasonal granita (at the moment it’s jackfruit). Crack open its crisp sugar shell and you’re rewarded with a ball of ice-cream, coated in a malt biscuit and sprinkled with icing sugar.
I veer towards savoury every time, and usually always order cheese instead of sweets – but this dessert is so terrific and textured (once again it’s the softness of the “yolk” contrasting with the sharpness and chill of the granita), it can overcome ingrained preferences.
While the food and the views are the stars of the show, the dining room is simple and understated. The purple carpet is a bit lairy but that’s a minor quibble. The tables are large, with room to move your elbows and are far enough apart from your neighbours that you can have a private conversation. It’s also a relatively hushed dining room with good acoustics and room to move – so rare these days.
Quay is expensive (we paid $376 for two plus tip). But if you want a big treat, you get what you pay for here: amazing views, excellent (and very unobtrusive) service and a menu comprising the best of seasonal produce, painstakingly prepared without being finicky.
Guardian Australia reviews anonymously and pays its own way.
