Dinner at Tetsuya's (Sydney, Australia) [LONG w/ PICTURES]

When I travel, I try to make an effort to get dinner reservations at one critically acclaimed restaurant. As we all know, however, taste is subjective and more than once I have been burned by an experience that fails to meet my (all too often) inflated expectations.

Happily, my dinner at Tetsuya's did not let me down. Perhaps I have learned from past experience, or perhaps Tetsuya's is that good - either way, my meal was exceptionally prepared and executed.

First, the scene is set, off a busy street in Sydney's CBD (Central Business District):



(that's my sister in the red dress)

The house is a quiet and civilized retreat from the surrounding businesses, streets, foot traffic, and apartment buildings. The building is reminiscent of a well-to-do Japanese home, private from the front, and open and serene in back. Tetsuya's backyard features an elegant Japanese garden. Here's the view from our table:



There is no menu at Tetsuya's - it is entirely prix fixe. Servers memorize the evening's offerings and recite them to you after you have had a chance to order a cocktail or a glass of wine(for which there is an extensive menu, including a number of wines specially bottled for Tetsuya). As there is no menu, there is no price listed either. Either you arrived prepared to spend, or you eat elsewhere.

The menu is mostly seafood. Because I don't eat any of the four-legged animals (I'm not really a chowist), they subsituted more fish. My sister, however, did get the regular menu.

The first item brought to our table was a terrific "Italian" roll served with truffle and Parmigiano-Reggiano butter. For the first time I genuinely enjoyed truffle butter, as it was made with fresh truffles rather than the over-used and over-flavored truffle oil. It was subtle, elegant, and made me forget my seemingly arbitrary prohibition against eating compound butters.



Our first course was a simple corn soup served with a savory basil ice cream:



The ice cream was lovely, neither too salty nor too sweet. The flavor of the sweet corn was nicely amplified by a touch of acidity and the basil.

The next course, served with a spoon, was sushi deconstructed, sans nori: an ahi tuna tartare atop a round of sushi rice, served with an avocado puree and osetra caviar. The server urged us to mix the ingredients and eat a bit of each together. I found myself unable to sully the look of the plate by obeying the server's --and chef's -- wishes. Perhaps I deprived myself of the flavor combo of the year? I'll never know.



The next plate was by far my favorite course: three exquisite pieces of sashimi, each expertly cut, seasoned and paired.


Tuna, trout (or bass?) and sweet shrimp from New Zealand were each small treasures. The trout was especially beautiful, buttery, and fresh.

They then brought out a 'crab ravioli' -- the texture actually reminded me of kamaboko, Japanese 'processed' whitefish...it wasn't flaky but had a more egg-white emulsified mouth feel, especially the small disk of crab underneath that had been wrapped in nori, cooked, and sliced thin.



The Salmon course was by far my favorite. Served with a salad of bitter greens (not pictured), it was a show stopper.



The salmon had been slow cooked and topped with finely ground wakame,
giving it that unmistakable flavor of umami. The fish is accompanied by unpasteurized paddlefish (?) caviar and fennel. It was exquisite.

And then came the bass:



which I enjoyed while my sister had, hmmm, something with pancetta:



And then I had rouget, my last course (by this time I was getting delirious and my food memory started to get overloaded):



And my sister had veal:



We were then on to dessert. I was ready to explode, but I'm always up for more dessert.

First there were the soups and sorbets. On the left is pineapple, which was incredibly refreshing after what was possibly the largest and richest meal I had eaten in weeks, and on the right is a "liquid strawberry shortcake". The pineapple won my vote.



And then there was the ice cream with white bean...so creamy and good...there was a large dollop of sweet white bean puree (like shiro an but so much finer):



and just when we thought we were done, they brought out the most bizarre ile flottanteI have ever seen...made in a timbale and striped with chocolate and raspberry puree:



And then, of course, the sweets at the very end. There were sweet potato truffles (sweet potato puree combined with creme fraiche, rolled in cocoa powder) and then these coconut-covered beauties...at this point I must have had too much to eat and drink, as I have no memory of what these were filled with.



There is nothing overly precious or particularly experimental about the food at Tetsuya's. With the exception of three things (the ravioli, the liquid shortcake and the ile flottante...which I ate anyway) it was flawless, from the attentive, kind, and engaging servers (who informed me that Thomas Keller had dined there a week earlier and had invited one of them to Per Se next time she is in NYC), to the setting, to the food. One thing that struck me during our meal was that my sister and I were the youngest people there -- both of us under 40. By contrast, I have met ambitious 24 year old cooks spending their pennies on a blow out while dining at Alinea -- is there something about Tetsuya's that says "old fogie" to young Australians, or are they simply not engaged with upscale restaurant food culture?

For the rest of the night I really didn't care. I had eaten at Tetsuya's...and I can still remember exactly what that salmon tasted like.

Great report, great photos. And how much did it cost?

Actually, it was very reasonable...with wine and cocktails, it was about $200 US per person.

And here's one picture I left out: the sweet potato 'truffle':