Awarded Three Chef’s hats

Tetsuya’s reputation as one of the best restaurants for fine dining in Sydney (if not The Best Restaurant) precedes itself to even the non-foodie me of several years ago. Its reputation is further garnered by a surreptitiously covert location (behind the Judge House and big, leafy trees) and its slightly stand-offish gates… oh and not to mention meals at exorbitant prices.

Walking past, I’ve always wondered how one would enter Tetsuya’s – through the Judge House? Some hidden gate that I’ve missed? I was still puzzled when I got there and awkwardly loitered out in front, waiting for the rest of my party to arrive.

Everyone arrived before our 6.30pm booking and not thinking it was opened yet, we did some more loitering. While we were talking, we noticed that the gate behind us that led to their (valet) carpark opened and closed several times for no apparent reason. We watched it bemusedly before realising that perhaps they were trying to tell us something. Heh.

The staff was very polite and welcoming, and the maitre d’ seemed a bit snobbish, but maybe it was due to his carriage and speech more than anything else – whatever it was, he was unfailingly polite. He took our coats and asked whether we wanted to cloak our bags as well – only he didn’t wait for an answer before grabbing one strap from my camera backpack with me holding onto the other. Torn between not wanting to let go and worried that I had to relinquish my backpack with all my gear (because it is a swanky place after all – backpacks on the floor would be unseemly, no?), we had a brief tug-of-war before he gave me what felt like an incredulous look (because I couldn’t look at him) and released the strap then went on to show us to our table as if nothing had happened. Relieved, but feeling quite embarrassed, I fell in behind the others.

Because we all had differing opinion of the dishes, I’ll be having 3 guest bloggers to hopefully give a well-rounded impression of Tetsuya’s degustation.

Chestnut Mushroom Soup with Truffle Salt

squishies: I must admit, I was at a bit of a loss on how to approach this dish… cute as it was in size (the over-grown thimble also had a little dent at the side that snugly nestles your thumb). I loved the strong, rich flavours of the soup – then again, I’m quite partial to mushrooms. It might have been a bit salty, but it was delicious enough to overlook that. I was rather disappointed it was so small, having finished it off way too quickly.

helena: I was more interested in the cup itself than the soup. It’s obviously handmade by a skilled potter with the classic thumb indentation so that one can easily pick it up. The earthy flavours was a nice warm up especially the truffle note.

minh: I was going to mention the thumb imprint, but helena beat me to that one. Primarily aimed as a quick starter I had to resist the urge to one shot the lot, instead sipping it slowly. While it may have been flavoured with truffles all I could taste was salt to be honest, I’m not sure if the truffle aspect really added anything to the flavour. The soup itself was clearer than it seems in the photo, the mushrooms and salt complimented each other making for a nice mouthful before the first proper entrée.

ram: While the presentation, namely the shapely “shot glass” the soup arrived in, was fascinating (for the girls and their cameras at least), the warm broth within made a simple and welcoming entrée piece, as if to say – come on in, get warm and comfy. The cheeky tang of the truffle salt never overpowers the smooth savoury taste of mushroom, the flavours mixing well in this tiny tease of a first dish.

Smoked Ocean Trout & Avruga Caviar

s: “Mushy” first came to mind when I bit into this morsel. For some reason I expected the caviar to pop, but it didn’t. The ocean trout was delectable, but I was unsure whether I liked the caviar. The scallop egg thing on top made it really interesting to eat when eaten all together.

h: I hate egg, but am willing to try this strange scallop egg. You are suppose the mix up the egg with the caviar and trout. I liked the caviar and trout mix with the caviar giving a slight salty flavour, but I still wasn’t sold on the egg. It was interesting but I don’t think it added any new taste to the overall flavour.

m: I adore anything with scallops so was rather happy when this dish came out. The waiter advised us to mix the entire dish together which I did with glee. The caviar trout combo was a treat creating a rather light start, I’ll give them top marks for presentation on this dish as after mixing the sight of black caviar with pink trout was quite appealing. I wasn’t sure what was going on with the scallop egg combination as all together it rather tasted like a sea-egg?

r: I wasn’t sure on how to approach this presentation of caviar and fish. At first I tried to eat it clean by slicing the scallop apart, then gave up, mixed the lot together, and chomped down. The two key ingredients blend together nicely with the salty taste of the fish toned down slightly by the caviar. The scallop amidst the mix did come across as an odd outsider, but soon everyone was friends on their way to my stomach, merging together in an unexpectedly satisfying manner.

Leek & Crab Custard

s: Not too sure what the floating green dot was (chlorophyll?), but this dish was quite nice. When I think of custard, I think of something sweet-like. This, however, had a light, lingering taste of crab and I was surprised (quite pleasantly) to find very little pieces of crab meat right at the bottom of my cup.

h: Yum. This was extremely light and airy custard with the soy/seaweed dressing giving it a punch of salty flavour. There was no discernible chunks of leek or crab so they must have been pureed very finely. I was very sad to see the bottom of the cup.

m: I’ll have to admit the concept of leek and crab in a custard would never have occured to me. The presentation was simply done with the custard placed on a wooden placemat, complete with matching spoon. Quite unsure of what exactly the green dot on the custard was as it didn’t seem to contribute to the taste at all… most memorable was the matching Saki which had been chosen to compliment the dish. One of the higher grades of saki it went down extremely smoothly with barely a kick and was an amazingly close match for the custard. While the custard alone was almost a little too salty for my tastes, the mix with the saki made this one of my favourites of the night.

r: This dish worked so well with the mated Sake, I felt it would be a let-down to have it without. The custard leaves a salty taste on your tongue that is well complemented by the clean, subtle bite of the high grade (Junmai-Ginjo) sake.

Grilled Scampi Wrapped in Pancetta, Scampi in Sea Water & Lemon Scented Olive Oil, and Marinated Scampi with White Miso and Passionfruit

s: The grilled scampi wrapped in pancetta was my favourite out of the three; the others were a bit too… snot-like for me. However, having said that I quite liked the dainty lemon zest the scampi in sea water had. I was a bit of a goose and stuck my fork into the glass instead of lifting the scampi by the delicately twisted bamboo skewer – thankfully Helena corrected me. Wasn’t a fan of the white miso and passionfruit marinade. True it was made interesting by the sweet-sourness of the passionfruit, but I found the white miso to be a bit too grainy and thick on the tongue for my liking.

h: Three different ways of treating the scampi. Interesting. The grilled scampi was just firm and strangely I couldn’t really taste the pancetta. Pulling the scampi from the seawater through the olive oil was the most exciting part of playing/making your food. The lemon beautifully complimented the slightly salty scampi. Unfortunately the raw scampi did nothing for me. Miso and passionfruit? I couldn’t decide if it was suppose to be savoury or sweet.

m: I thought this was one of the stranger dishes of the night. The Pancetta scampi seemed a little overcooked for my tastes and really was more of a prawn without a head. Pancetta? That was news to me… Contrary to the others I actually quite liked the Scampi with miso and passionfruit, the passionflower on its own would have been too sweet for my tastes but the saltiness of the miso was a nice balance. The lemon scented oil was not my cup of tea, apart from the fun of pulling the entire contraption apart I couldn’t taste any of the lemon and felt rather that I was eating an overly oily prawn. Nice stick though.

r: The character in the centre of this dish piqued my interest at the start. That’s olive oil floating above seawater, with the scampi skewered within. Pull the scampi out through the oil as fast or slow as you want, and you have your own customised crayfish. This little bit of user interaction make the former’s other amigo’s look a bit pedestrian. Both do duty as nice bite-sized morsels, rounding off this dish as a delightful precursor for the masterwork to follow.

Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Daikon, & Fennel Seasonal Green Salad

s: This was the best thing I have ever tasted in a long time. The ingredients complimented each other rather nicely, but it was the ocean trout that was perfection itself. I was definitely sorry that I finished it. The salad that accompanied this dish was a simple one – garden salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar – but there was something about it that made it delicious; perhaps it was the combination of fresh greens and the perfect balance between olive oil and balsamic.

h: I can understand why people rave about this dish and it’s Tetsuya’s signature. The trout was amazingly fresh, the konbu perfectly complimenting it and bursting with flavour when hitting the tongue. All the ingredients work nicely in harmony with each other.

m: Konbu! This is a dish definitely worthy of the raving. Deceptively simple, yet the combination of it all works wonderfully. The trout is soft and pink and almost overpowering without the kombu to give you a slightly salty kick to it all. The vegetables chosen were a good choice as they had a milder taste to them to avoid overpowering the fish. Also came with a very nice garden salad which was a hit with the table.

r: Overzealous in filling my ravenous stomach, I had finished this course off in record time. Possibly quicker than the time it took me to type this. Looking around at my fellow diners, including the random strangers around me, I realised I had just committed culinary sacrilege. Eager for a proper taste of Tetsuya-san’s much heralded brilliance, I was given a (pity) portion of squishies’ sample. The soft, tender, salty trout was simply amazing. The combination makes a mouthful that is difficult to capture in words, although the girls have made a good dig at it. Try it, you’ll see…

Ravioli of Queensland Spanner Crab with Tomato & Basil Vinaigrette

s: I think any dish that comes after the ocean trout would be hard-pressed to be better tasting (unless, of course, if it was really, really, really good). When the ravioli came out, we were all thinking: “Wonton!?” and were a bit weirded out for some reason. The ravioli was okay, nothing really stood out as particularly tasty or new.

h: It was a fish ball masqurading as a wonton. I actually like the vinaigrette more.

m: Wonton? For a moment I thought I’d stumbled into Din Tai Fung by mistake… A quick update from the waiter revealed that our wonton was actually Ravioli in disguise! Could have fooled me, I would have sworn it was a tofu wonton. Probably one of the biggest let downs of the night, nothing bad about it just nothing interesting.

r: Being blessed (debateable) with non SE Asian heritage, I was the only person on the table to not pick this as a wonton. But now that has been said I am unable to think of it any other way. Maybe just “Pastry with filling”. So, not being accustomed to this little number appearing on a dinner plate with regularity, I actually enjoyed the half mouthful or so of vinaigrette soaked, tomato and basil coated goodness of this dish.

Fillet of Barramundi with Braised Baby Fennel

s: If the ravioli was a bit of a come-down after the ocean trout, then the barramundi was definitely on its way towards being highly unexciting. It was quite bland and the barramundi was as long as, and slightly wider than, my index finger; one *nom* (quite literally) and it was all gone. I know it’s a degustation, where portions are tiny, but the ocean trout was massive! Anywho, perhaps the flavours were too subtle for me to discern, as I did have a semi-blocked nose that night.

h: Every Sydney degustation seems to have one barramundi dish. I suppose because it’s such an Australian produce. I found the fish meat to be slightly overcooked, but then I’m use to eating barramundi where the meat is so soft it’s literally falling to bits.

m: Hey, I like barramundi! After the wonton dish anything was a plus and I enjoyed the barramundi, but in all honesty it really was quite small. Fennel seemed to be one of the big themes of the night and as always is a good choice with asian food and seafood in general. It might have been better to start off with the barramundi and finish with the trout in my opinion.

r: The novelties of a degustation is found in the diminutive sizes of the courses, presented on enormous plates that are almost comically too big. And so it was with this little morsel, no bigger than a finger, as squishies has remarked. Pile it all up onto a fork and there’s your Omega 3 intake for the day, in one convenient bite. Flaky and prone to fall apart at the slightest touch, it behaved like a fish dish, it tasted like a fish dish, and it melted well onto your tongue like a good fish dish.

Breast of Duck with Braised Witlof with Sansho & Walnut Jus

s: Quite game-y, but juicy and soft. I kept asking Helena and Minh whether duck’s suppose to be this chewy, but unfortunately I can’t seem to remember what their responses were.

h: Rarest game I’ve ever had. Deliciously soft. And yes duck and all game is chewy. But there are degrees of chewy-ness. This was the good kind.

m: After the fun of the seafood dishes, I found the red meat offerings to be disappointing to be honest. A slight mix-up with the waiter meant that tonight’s offerings included duck and lamb instead of Wagyuu which I would have infinitely preferred. Cooked the point of being almost too raw, almost (juuuust right)! Wonderfully tender and fabulous when combined with the red wine.

r: As beef is off the menu for me, this was going to be a replacement for me only, however our waiter informed us that the menu was changed for that night only and everyone else got to go bovine-free in favour of this chewy fellow. How you can replace what is very tender meat on a set menu with a chewy understudy and retain the same flow in the degustation escaped me. Until, that is, the wine came to the rescue. I have trouble recalling which red was mated to this dish, but the tough, fibrous texture of the duck seemed to come alive with a touch of grape, the two were that perfectly paired. No surprise that this instalment of the wine course disappeared much quicker than earlier iterations, distributed amongst my fellow diners.

Slow Roasted De-Boned Rack of Lamb with Blue Cheese & White Miso

s: I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a big fan of white miso – it’s just a bit too thick, grainy, and slightly over-powering for me to like. While this dish sounds quite exotic, taste-wise it was quite average.

h: The highlight here had to be the blue cheese and miso sauce. Amazing Tetsuya can mix seemingly disparate ingredients together and make them work.

m: It’s telling when you have trouble recalling a dish. To be honest I’d mixed this one up with the duck in my head and was surprised that we’d even had Lamb. I felt that the miso was too overpowering in this dish, and would have prefered for the sauce to be scattered around the plate, rather than smothering the meat.

r: Minh and I both share the same memory loss over this dish. What I do recall is that by this stage I was already missing the trout. Points awarded for the cheese.

Comte with Lentils

s: Our waiter told us that this dish is meant to be a transistion between the savoury taste of mains to the sweetness of the desserts. The red beans used really reminded me of the beans used in the Vietnamese dessert che (biggest suspicion that it was). The sweetness of the beans and the savouriness of the cheese, to be honest, didn’t quite work for me. It was rather strange and strangely unfulfilling.

h: Mouthful of overly sweet lentils and savoury cheese. Didn’t work for me. But it did jog the tastebuds along towards anticipating the desserts!

m: Weird. The little spoonful went down quickly and I had to squelch the wince that came with the sweet but strangely salty aftereffect. To be honest it gave me a bad flashback to a few years ago when one of the desserts featured during Good Food Month was simply this type of spoon with chocolate.

r: Lentils are a familiar friend to my tastebuds – a staple diet. Mix in some nice French cheese and this segue between courses nicely sets you up for the next quartet of treats.

Apple Sorbet with Apple Jelly, and Mont Blanc

s: The apple sorbet was scrumptious – it fairly burst with the flavour of a fresh, crisp Granny Smith apple. The jelly was a bit watery and not very gelatinous, but that could be because the sorbet had started to melt by the time I got around to eating it. I did not like the Mont Blanc at all. The noodle-like topping was like finely grounded red beans (very paste-like), sitting on top of a slightly-alcoholic tasting mousse of some sort. The white wafer-thing tasted like “salty styrofoam” (stealing Minh’s description of it).

h: Apple sorbet must be one of the hardest sorbet to create. Tetsuya’s flavour is exactly like a real granny smith apple complete with the acid sourness. So many times has the misleading label “green apple” mean “overly sweet apple concentrate”. Mont Blanc was dense but delicious! The chestnut topping was smooth and a nice precursor to the chestnut cream puree below. The crisp meringue did not taste like a meringue. It was actually a little bit salty.

m: I adored the apple sorbet, it was amazingly fresh and the flavour was really captured in it. The girls spent so long trying to photograph this dish that it started melting! Not a problem on my side as half the dish had vanished down my throat by that point. That said, I disliked the Mont Blanc as the chestnut cream had a strange bitter alcoholic tinge to it. Not being a fan of alcohols in desserts, this wasn’t one that was going to change my mind. Added to that was the strange salty styrofoam thing parked in the top… Let’s just say the sorbet was tops.

r: I am generally not a big fan of sorbet, too often I find them to come off a bit “7/11 Slurpee” like – all ice, some fruit, plenty of colour. But even then I can appreciate when one is done as well as this – perhaps it was the apple jelly that brings it all together but it did the job – fresh and tangy goodness in a shotglass. Which is why I was glad I left it till last, opting instead to try the Mont Blanc and its layered oddness. The red bean noodles, cream and chestnut puree were too “warm”, in terms of texture, for what I was expecting, and the wafer was simply confusing – i wasn’t sure what it was doing.

Apple Tarte Tartin with Calvados Cream Ice Cream

s: The ice cream was smooth and the pastry oh-so-flaky! The apple bits were okay, but the highlight of this dessert was definitely the yummy, flaky pastry.

h: The apple tarte tartin was okay. The pastry was a dense and flaky. I don’t know this dish didn’t really stand out.

m: A strange choice of dessert I thought as it seemed almost pedestrian after the last few offerings. The pastry was nicely crunchy and paired well with the ice-cream, but wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a typical Ma ‘n Pa style pub.

r: A bit like having a circus in your mouth – if you’re a fan of multiple flavours and textures fighting it out on your tastebuds for attention, this will probably sort you out. The pastry was flaky and stiff and seemed to war with the smooth texture of the ice cream and sauces/filling sandwiched within. But being the type of character who enjoys French fries with ice cream, all was well with the world and this went down great!

Chocolate Ganache with Green Tea & Red Beans

s: This dessert was so delightfully delicious and it was quite cleverly constructed; when the spaceship-like wafer is lifted up, all the ganache comes spilling out and we marvelled at how they would have made it.

h: Chocolate granache and red beans? I had reservations but it works! The granache was perfectly smooth and the slightly bitterness of the chocolate balanced out the sweetness of the red bean. I was amazed at the pastry. It’s like a hat sitting on top of the green tea & red bean filling.

m: Chocolate? I’ve been a bit off chocolate lately, but the construction of this entire dessert was really fun. The redbeans formed the base, and the chocolate biscuit on the top actually had a hole in the centre, allowing the chocolate to flow through freely onto the red bean. I was rather fascinated with the aluminum foil atop this creation (creating a rather UFO like look), but vaguely disappointed when it tasted like nothing.

r: Reading the girls’ comments on this dessert, I realised I missed something important in my dissection of this little filler – the hole in the middle of the biscuit and its function of stowing up the chocolate away from the beans. Being the first dish with my good mate dark chocolate, I didn’t stop to admire this offering but dug straight in, cut a pie slice out of the biscuit, scrambled in the beans, leaving the al-foil out of the mix and let the concoction do its work. The chocolate and beans go together just fine, however I felt the biscuit was a bit of a distraction, a bit too stiff compared to the soft velvet texture of its contents.

Petit Four – Almond Biscotti, Chocolate Macaroon with Lemon Filling, Green Tea Marshmallow (?), and Dark Chocolate Truffle

s: The almond biscotti was my favourite out of the petit fours – it was like a mini almond taste-bomb when bitten into. The lemon filling had a pleasant zing to an otherwise normal macaroon, while the dark chocolate truffle I found to be too dark (which kind of took over my tastebuds and all I could taste was super dark chocolate for a while). The green tea marshmallow was wonderfully soft and lightly sweet with a very slight trace of the green tea bitterness.

h: Almond biscotti: Light and soft. The macaroon was my favourite, only because I loved the lemon filling. Green tea marshmallow was like eating a cloud. It was that fluffy. The truffle was intense. Dense full of dark dark chocolate truffle filling. I had to digest it in two bites.

m: Almost too pretty to eat, a lovely way to end the meal with a selection of mini-treats. The Almond Biscotti almost crumbled in my mouth and had a great flavour to it all. I’m not a fan of Macaroons, but had expected it to be a little softer and was caught off guard when it reacted like an oreo after I bit into it. I really thought the Green Tea Marshmellow was a cake and found myself covered in the powered sugar when I bit into it! Thumbs down for the Truffle though, much too dense and dark for my liking!

r: Being a fan of dark chocolate, I’d normally lean towards the truffle in this ensemble, however the fluffy texture coating the outside distracted me from really savouring the bitter/sweet flavours of the chocolate. The marshmallow was, as Minh described, quite dusty, and the macaroon was over before it began… leaving just a hint of lemony tang as a calling card. Out of this group I liked the almond biscotti most, it wasn’t too much or something, too little of another, it just did its job – tasted like almond and crumbled like a biscuit.

Tetsuya’s Garden

s: We were told to expect to be at the restaurant for a long time – about 4 hours… we were there for 6 – past midnight! I would most probably blame it on us taking a gazillion photos before eating, but we did spend quite a lot of the time just chatting away and drinking.

While at $195 for a degustation that doesn’t really leave you feeling full (and being a bit disappointed with some of the dishes) is rather steep, it was very much an awesome experience and one that I think should be tried at least once.

h: You also have to remember we spent a lot of gushing over the alcohol. I say go there to try the plonk because their range is incredible. They have one big book for the wines, champagne, dessert/port, and another for after dinner drinks. The 25yr old Armagnac was intense, full of delicious, spicy smells and flavours. Just the way I like my spirits.

r: In case you do decide a drink is in order, add Tetsuya’s wine course to your meal – the matched wines complement the degustation courses and offer the sommelier hidden inside you bragging rights at your next dinner party:

• 2001 Clover Hill Blanc de Blanc, Pipers River, Tas
• Tamano Hikari Sake, Junmai-Ginjo, Kyoto, Japan
• 2006 Lost Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Central High Country, Vic
• 2007 Henschke Joseph Hill Gewürztraminer, Eden Valley, SA
• 2007 Pierro Chardonnay for Tetsuya’s, Margaret River, WA
• 2005 Bass Phillip Pinot Noir for Tetsuya’s, Gippsland, Vic
• 2005 Torbreck The Steading Grenache / Shiraz / Mataro, Barossa Valley, SA
• 2006 Heggies Botrytis Riesling, Eden Valley, SA
• Romate Moscatel Ambrosia, Jerez, Spain

Tetsuya’s
529 Kent St
Sydney, NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9267 2900
Fax: (02) 9262 7099
Web: www.tetsuyas.com

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