Since we’ve been together, Brad and I tend not to get presents for each other for birthdays or Christmas. Instead, we normally go on a holiday together or to a nice restaurant. This Christmas, as we were in Sydney with Brad’s family, we decided to go to Quay Restaurant, as it was one of two Sydney restaurants that appeared in the San Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurants in the World. The other restaurant is Tetsuya’s -  which we went to on our last visit to Sydney. 

One of the main attractions of Quay, is the wonderful view of the Sydney Harbour. It really is located right on the harbour. I would advise any tourist visiting Sydney to make a booking here because the views are just so spectacular. I have a theory that restaurants with great views tend to have not so great food but Quay disproved my theory, much to my relief. 

We’d had a hectic few weeks, what with getting married and we’d also gone to Rockpool the night before for dinner. I wasn’t feeling the best, so there was no way I could go the full tasting menu. Instead we plumped for the three course menu plus petit fours. 

We started with a delicate amuse bouche, which was Tuna Sashimi on Diced Vegetables. There was a beautiful flower alongside, which seemed to figure quite prominently in all the dishes we had at Quay. 

For starters, I opted for Salad of French breakfast radishes, pickled beetroot, goat’s curd, blood sorrel, violets, olive, pine resin, balsamico. Quite the mouthful but it was one of the most artistic plates of food I’ve ever seen in a restaurant. It was like I’d entered a petite garden in the style of Alice in Wonderland. The breakfast radishes were crunchy and fresh but they needed to be married with the rather hidden beetroot and balsamico flavours in order to deliver a real punch. I found the goat’s curd delivered a real richness to the dish but was still a little bland overall. 

Brad opted for the Butter poached coturnix quail breast, pumpernickel, morel and ethical foie gras pudding, walnuts, quinoa, truffle custard, milk skin, which looked a little dissappointing next to the Breakfast Radishes but it delivered much more in terms of flavour. We pondered just what ethical foie gras actually meant and vowed to look it up later. 

Onto the mains and I couldn’t go past the Confit of Gippsland Lamb loin, smoked white carrot cream, fennel infused milk curd, Pantelleria capers, nasturtiums, fennel pollen. Again, the presentation was fantastic. The vegetables were just on the right side of crunchy whilst the meat was melt-in-your-mouth tender. 

Brad was only ever going to go for the Roasted fillet of pure Angus beef, truffle infused potato puree, baby spinach, bitter chocolate black pudding crumbs, morels and this came with a $15 supplement on top. I’m not a huge fan of supplements on dishes but that is a discussion for another time. The meat was cooked as requested (medium rare) and the crust came in for his praise. 

Desperate for some more greenery, we opted for Mixed leaves which was $10 extra. I thought this was a touch steep personally but was arrived was without fault. 

Brad went for one of the signature dishes of the restaurant for dessert, which was their White nectarine snow egg. As you can see from the pictures it truly is a site to behold. The nectarine flavour in the ice itself was a little bit jarring with the round creme-brulee type egg but he was a happy bunny ‘cracking’ open the egg to reveal a gooey inside. 

As much as I wanted to try the chocolate extravaganza they have on their menu, my stomach was just not up to it, so I opted for the Preserved wild cherries, coconut cream, chuao chocolate crumble, cherry juice and chocolate sorbet. It was a rather unusual combination of textures and hiding underneath the crumble was the rich preserved cherries. The combination of flavours was reminiscent of a black forest cake.

We opted for coffee (Brad) and tea (Me) which came with two petit fours, again at an extra $8 charge. The plainer petit four trumped the more unusual looking chocolate one at the front of the picture, which was like rice bubble around chocolate ganache, rolled in bitter chocolate powder. 

The damage was AU$335 all up. Not too bad given that I wasn’t drinking (but still opted for rather expensive  mocktails) and we had quite a few dishes with supplements. 

Quay Restaurant
Overseas Passenger Terminal, The Rocks
Sydney 2000 Australia
Phone: +61(0)292515600
http://www.quay.com.au/