Quay

Ph: 9251 5600; Upper Level, Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay West, SYDNEY 2000 www.quay.com.au

Modern Australian, $$$ +, *** for Food & Ambience, Good Wine List
Open Lunch Tue-Fri noon-3pm Dinner 7 days 6pm-10pm, Closed Some public holidays; Licensed; AE DC MC V
Chef Peter Gilmore (02-09-08) Owner Leon Fink (02-09-08)

Mietta's Review
The unbelievably great view is only marred by the Opera House which takes up most of it. Of course, that's on the days when a liner's not berthed outside. Quay is one of Australia's great situations and quintesentially Sydney. It's also that city's second most expensive a la carte restaurant (Aria is more) - entrees pushing $40 and mains $50 with not much on the wine list under $70. This is about $15 a person or 10% more than it's competitors. So what's it like? As discussed the view is unsurpassed, the setting is excellent, comfort as expected and diners are pampered by the waiting staff who pat and stroke them until they purr like contented, well fed cats. The only jarring note is the noise of the air conditioning battling it out with Billy Holliday. In a restaurant of this quality both should go. Food: Peter Gilmore is an excellent chef. His dishes are beautifully conceived and executed. Classical in design they have a series of restrained oriental flavours running through them which he manages to make work in a European context. If there is a fault it's that there are so many flavours on the plate that it's difficult to assimilating them before the dish is finished. But leaving aside the eccentricities of personal taste, this is really refined and imaginative food. All in all, Quay is a very good restaurant for those who can afford it.

Other published opinions

Gourmet Traveller 2009 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: *** "Turnips the size of peas. thically fished' sharkfin. Half of Peter Gilmore's brilliance is his shopping list. The other half is his preternatural sense of balance and restraint. The pencil of goat's curd in crisp pastry with sculpted figs, pistachios and borage flowers should be a triumph of style over substance"

The Age Necia Wilden, 16-9-2008 Score: 17.5/20 "It was great, but..." "The food was amazing, but..." Try as I might, there is no denying the "but" that trails all my conversations the morning after dinner at Australia's best restaurant. Is that so surprising? Quay, on Sydney Harbour, had just smashed the records to become the Michael Phelps of the Australian restaurant world, being the first to be named restaurant of the year twice in the same year - first by the Australian Gourmet Traveller 2009 Restaurant Guide and then by the 2009 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. As SMH reviewer Simon Thomsen wrote on September 2, giving it a score of 18/20 for the maximum of three hats, "Peter Gilmore delivers exciting, enticing, sensual and cutting-edge Australian cooking .."

Sydney Morning Herald Simon Thomsen, 2-9-2008 Score: 18/20 "Peter Gilmore delivers exciting, enticing, sensual and cutting-edge Australian cooking in a landmark setting that makes Quay worthy of the title of Australia's best restaurant."

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 18/20, Three Hats "Quay's gaudy decor is starting to date (and a refit is planned), but maestro chef Peter Gilmore continues to scale new heights"

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: *** "Does that incredible harbour view make the kitchen work all the harder t capture your attention? In his set four-course and degustation menus, Peter Gilmore reveals everything that makes fine dining interesting - sure-handed use of unusual ingredients, finesse and a bold imagination"

Sydney Eats 2008 "Arguably the best view of Sydney in Sydney - a passing liner fills the floor-to-ceiling glass walls - is complemented by the constantly clever but always edible food of chef Peter Gilmore"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2007 Score: 18/20, Three Hats "With its stunning sweep of Opera House, Bridge and harbour views, this is one of Sydney's finest settings. So it's even harder to understand the room's visual cacophony: shiny ceiling, the downlight reflections and that carpet (we know it's an echo of the shimmering harbour, but why be so competitive?)."

Gourmet Traveller 2007 Restaurant Guide Score: *** "Bring out the food and let the diners come. With cooking as good as Peter Gilmore's, the view bridge, harbour, House, quay, the works - is one of the least remarkable things in the room. Ignore the fact that much of that room looks like a nightclub with the lights turned on and find transcendence in the textures of cubes of twicecooked pork belly, braised abalone, cuttlefish and house-made tofu that's truly silken."

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2006 score 18/20, 3 Hats "It takes a brave chef to drop an iconic dish (pork belly and scallops) after five years, but Peter Gilmore is master of his waterfront domain. Soon every other restaurant will be trying to imitate his pressed suckling porker. ... Service is deferentially restrained and prices creep towards international levels - but, what the hell, this is a worldclass restaurant. "

Gourmet Traveller 2006 Australian Restaurant Guide *** "Maybe the staff and decor at Quay won't rock your world, but if the harbour views don't, then, by golly, Peter Gilmore's menu will. Few chefs merge beauty and integrity, intensity and delicacy, fireworks and poise in so seemingly effortless a manner as this quiet achiever."

Sydney Eats 2006 "Peter Gilmore has built a following among the serious food lovers of Sydney as one of the city's most thoughtful chefs. His restaurant is housed in one of the most attractive rooms in Sydney with arguably the finest view of the harbour."

SBS Eating Guide to Sydney 2005 "This one has another unreserved recommendation. The glorious views are matched by the glorious food. Chef Peter Gilmore celebrates taste, texture and a whole world of ingredients."

SMH Good Food Guide 2005 Score 18/20 Three Hats Restaurant of the Year Good Wine List Award Winning Restaurant "While Quay has always had the goods in some respects - Opera House and Bridge views, a great wine list, deft service it's only now that we see just how good a restaurant in Australia can become. Thanks to the stellar talents of chef Peter Gilmore, the location is now just a side dish."

SMH Good Food Guide 2005 Best Show Off "If it can seem a little stiff at times, feel assured you can take business clients as well as lovers for some of the best food in the nation."

The Age GFG 2005 "SOME come for the harbour views, some for the stellar wine list. But no one can overlook the food, arguably Sydney's most creative and delectable."

Gourmet Traveller Australian Restaurant Guide 2005 *** Good Vegetarian Options, Good Wine List "Now that Sydney has woken up to the fact that there is some very serious talent in Quay's kitchen, it might be time to have a look at the decor. It's horrid, and it has to go; the widescreen views and Peter Gilmore's brilliantly inventive - and very attractively plated dishes deserve better."

Sydney Eats 2005 "At the western - Harbour Bridge - end of the old Overseas Passenger Terminal, is a restaurant whose chef creates rare and splendid dishes in what some say is the city's most elegant harbourside space."

SMH GFG 2004,Score 18/20,Good wine list,World class,'Good looking.Gifted.Mostly in control.Here is a rare combination of some of Sydney's finest Mod Oz food with Sydney's best Harbour views...The brief might be modern Australain but Quay's kitchen out-sources happily to Asia for inspiration...which is simple,stunning and elegant.'

Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide 2004, 3 Red Stars, Excellent wine list,'one of Sydney's finest restaurants...Always seasonal, it relies on a complex layering of flavours to strike a single pure note...Service is confident, helopful and informed.'

Sydney Morning Herald, Good Food Guide, Best restaurant 2003 Sydeny Morning Herald, 26.2.02. New chef, Peter Gilmore, Prices have gone down, food is excellent, space remains the same Sydney morning Herald, 11/7/01 "Good food, but really expensive