Quay

 

In my last post I highlighted that we only arrived back from a busy day in Sydney with enough time for a quick wash and change of clothes before we were back out at 6pm, cathing the 6.05pm T4 train from Kings Cross to Town Hall station. As well as the wonderful views from this hotel, the fact that it sits above the Kings Cross station means travel around the city is very convenient. We arrive at Town Hall station at 6.09pm and catch the 6.12pm T8 Train to Circular Quay.

Walking down the Western Arm of the semi-circle we come to Quay, our restaurant for tonight. It is said that "Quay is one of the country’s most celebrated restaurants" and it finds its way into the list of the world's top 50 restaurants. 

Quay is located in the Upper Level of the Overseas Passenger Terminal, The Rocks, Sydney. I had seen, when booking, the warning that Cruise ships might block the view, but I hadn't appreciated how amazing the view would be. Here is Quay between the great icons of Sydney - The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. 

From my seat I could take this picture of Drew to my left, with that bright white thing behind him 😂

And take this photo on my right!

what an astounding location and a great setting for some very good food.

The first thing we noticed was that the place had its own crockery and cutlery made for it

A pre-arranged booking, meant that in addition to the ten course menu we had ordered we would begin with a little luxury in the way of Caviar from the sterling complex aquatic producers. 

The caviar was served with some amazingly tasty Buckwheat Pikelets. They were so tasty we ended up having a second plate of them.

To stick the eggs to the pikelets we were served a creamy, salty butter.

We enjoyed every bit of the caviar and eat it all. When we had finished our Amuse bouche arrived on two plates. The first, seaweed in a squid ink tart, caviar, creme fraiche, viola flowers had my tongue tingling with pleasure at the little treat

The second plate was also very inventive, it looked like snails, but were made of Salty White valrhona chocolate with Australian finger lime other local herbs and flavours. 

Quay offers what it called a 'Temperance' drinks menu for those who don't drink alcohol. We opted for this selection and were very pleased we did.

First of the drinks to arrive was the Cucumber, verjus and agave with mint leaf. It is Is sharp and distinct and it goes so well with the dish that arrives shortly after it.

That dish being Wild Blacklip abalone with young octopus, raw scallops, seaweed, kohlrabi and aged vinegar. This amazing dish had all the tastes of the sea shore - what a delight. Delicate, yet distinctive. The cucumber and mint in the drink was a perfect foil for it.

The second drink was a Genmaicha tea with toasted rice. This was served from a Japanese Tea Pot into heat retaining cups, it had a very light flavour, typical of Japanese green teas with a smokiness from the rice.

It was served with the Smoked eel cream with sea cucumber, walnuts and Murray cod roe, the eel cream has its own smokiness which matches the drink. Overall the dish had light and delicate flavours, but each element offered a different texture to the mouth.

The third drink was made from a seadrift classic tomato consommé, dill, and extra virgin olive oil. I could imaging having this as a hearty soup - but it turns out that it also works  as a cold drink - strong, fresh tomatoy flavours brought out by the dill. People of my generation will not be surprised that as I drink it I have the words from the Dill the Dog song from the cartoon series The Herbs running through my mind.

This drink was served alongside native freshwater marron with sea urchin, tapioca, mustard butter and marigold. This is our second taste of Marron (a local crayfish) as it also played a part in the amazing meal last Wednesday in Wildflower, Perth. It is just as strong and lobster like in flavour and texture as it was then. Here it has the addition of a rich broth with tapioca looking like more fish eggs, very salty and tangy.

Our third drink of the evening was served from the bottle. It was from the brand Non, who make non-alcoholic drinks. In this case it was their pear, with other flavours, as on the bottle label.

these flavours have a christmas spice smell and a light peppery flavour. As you can see below, it has an amazing colour too.

It was designed to match the Poolish Crumpets, Poolish being the way of making the dough not my dyslexic was of spelling Polish!

the crumputs were served with Preserved truffle butter

and some pretend walnuts. Note to make the effect work these were mixed with real walnuts and we were warned to check we were picking the false for, not damaging our teeth of the real ones! The pretend ones are made from walnut oil infused polenta and shaped as walnuts. An innovative idea and a wonderful fun presentation. Really enjoyable.

The fourth drink was a glass of Rhubarb, jasmine and Seedlip grove. I know that rhubarb is a fleshy stalk not a fruit, but it is used in this drink like a fruit and complemented by the hint of jasmine with a foamy head. Much nicer to drink than it reads on the menu

This was served with confit pig jowl with maitake, Southern squid, hispi, sunchokes, salami and garum. When I saw the menu I had wondered about Drew's reaction to Pig Jowl, given the looks he had given me whenever I have had Bath Chaps at home, these come from the same part of the pig. But he had no qualms - the crunchy, juicy jowl and the equally juicy but less crunchy mushroom (what we call Hen of the Woods) perfectly complemented each other with little treats in the vegetables. Wonderful. 

The fifth drink in the Temperance selection is Cold brew Cascara with macerated strawberry.  Cascara, the berry of the coffee taken off the bean is dried and infused to make this drink - a sweet, earthiness is its main characteristic - plus its amazing colour almost as complex as some peaty whiskies.

This was served with a Wild Tasmanian Fallow deer with white sprouting broccoli, garlic flowers, a black garlic puree and oyster jus. The deer is matched well with the drink - it is also earthy and it is cooked gently to perfection - each herb and vegetable adds a layer of complication that can only be tasted not imagined. It would be worth coming to Quay just for this - let alone all the other wonderful things we have had

The sixth drink is an unusual combination of banana and pineapple. The drink is heavy on the banana, but I like banana, so that isn't a problem. The pineapple is a background sharpness to cut through the banana's sweetness.

It was served with a dish called on the menu White Coral. It, of course, had no real coral in it. Rather it was a white chocolate ganache, lychee granita, strawberry guava ice cream and a vanilla roulade wheel (what we would call a Swiss Roll). The use of the salty white chocolate in a dessert is inspired. It means even people like me, without a sweet tooth can enjoy the taste and texture of the dish.

Our final drinks pairing is a Saffron and vanilla soda. Saffron is a light flavour and so it really only hints at taste in this soda, but it has a refreshing mouth feel and lifts the vanilla flavour to a new level.

Prunes and Panettone - unlike the last dish which was a non-dessert eaters dessert, this dish is sweetness on sweetness with more sweetness. Given that I'm not a fan of sweet things my reaction to this was yuk. It was the only disappointment of the evening, it is such a pity it came so late in the meal, as it will affect my overall perception. No thank you. Drew, who is a sweet eater also found it too sweet even for him. He particularly didn't like the fact that instead of natural sweetness this dessert seemed to be made of reshaped sugar, rather than distinctive flavours.

Thankfully this wan't the end of the meal as we were served Petite Fours. Which include a Valrhona Chocolate Cake, where the rich chocolate was the star of the show.

and a small tangy lime tart shaped like a star

and a white chocolate tart with liquid chocolate inside, which looked like eyes

which meant we were able to finish the meal with an espresso each.

With the beautiful views and the excellent food and wine, with only one miss from our perspective, we feel Quay is well worth it's reputation. It didn't have the newness of flavours which we experience at Wildflower, but even though more of the flavours were conventional, they were executed with great excellence and served with care and attention at every stage.

We reversed out train journey back to the hotel. Walking to CIrcular Quay station to get the 10.50pm T2 to town hall, arriving at 10.55pm and the 11.02pm T4 to Kings cross arriving at 11.05pm and getting into the hotel room by 11.15pm, full but content. We were in bed by midnight.