Claude's

Ph: (02) 9331 2325; 10 Oxford St, WOOLLAHRA 2025 www.claudes.com.au

Modern French, $$$ +, *** for Food
Open Dinner Tue-Sat 7 .30pm-late; Licensed, BYO, Corkage $15 bottle; AE DC MC V, Seats inside 45, private room
Chef (Chui Lee Luk, 2007-11-3) Owner (Chui Lee Luk, 2007-11-3)

Mietta's Review
Chui Lee Luk takes over Claudes from her mentor Tim Pak Poy, the resulting food is still refined, sophisticated and superbly cooked it is the very model of what fine-dining food should be. The wine list, although limited, is international, aged and unique. The food is sensational, but the prices and the lacklustre surrounds detract noticeably from the otherwise memorable experience. You can still BYO for $10 a bottle. Some of Sydney's very best food and essential visiting for those who 'go for the food'.

Other published opinions

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 18/20, Three Hats "Claude's has been a gastronomic temple for more than 30 years. Discreetly housed in a Federation terrace on one of Sydney's most vibrant streets, it has an air of mysterious exclusivity with nothing more than a doorbell and nameplate to make its mark"

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: *** "Modern French' is what they like t call it here, but rare is the Parisian restaurant that deploys abalone, snake beans, basil seeds and crocodile floss alongside its souffle a la Suissesse and ballottine of Aylesbury duck"

Sydney Eats 2008 "Sydney has really taken to Chui Lee Luk's elegant low-key cuisine, which seems to fit this small, dignified room, lined with Limoges porcelain bearing Napoleon's crest, like tailormade silk gloves"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2007 Score: 18/20, Three Hats "Dinner at Claude's is one of the finer things in life. For its many fans, the fourth and latest chef/owner Chui Lee Luk has admirably maintained the aura of stability and familiarity that began a remarkable 30 years ago."

Gourmet Traveller 2007 Restaurant Guide Score: *** "As its Oxford Street terrace facade gives way to small, classically appointed rooms, so too do Claude's terse menu descriptions unfold into complex, intricate constructions. Against the hush and anticipation three decades of cutting-edge dining brings, 'crab coddled in truffle vodka' translates to a symphony in a china vessel composed of sweet mudcrab meat, truffle steeped in Grey Goose vodka, a touch of pigeon consomme and a thin disc of daikon set together in a savoury custard inspired by Japan's chawan mushi."

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2006 score 18/20, Three Hats "Other restaurants sway with fickle fashions, but not Claude's. Change is rare here, so when long-time chef Tim Pak Poy left the kitchen in 2004 to make way for his Malaysian-Chinese sous chef, Chui Lee Luk, devotees of fine dining nervously waited to see what would alter at the altar. The answer is: not much. The small room remains timelessly serene with wellspaced tables and Limoges dinnerware on the walls. The food remains French with modern accents"

Gourmet Traveller 2006 Australian Restaurant Guide *** "Where the mode of your enjoyment is more variable at the nation's other leading restaurants, the focus at this icon is on refinement. Classical music and rare Limoges china are the background, the unimpeachably professional waiters speak softly (sometimes maddeningly so), and even the way the menu is printed evokes an erudite gentility."

Sydney Eats 2006 "This modest centre of culinary excellence, now in its fourth decade and fourth chef, continues to deeply satisfy those more impressed by content and excellence than style and chutzpah."

SBS Eating Guide to Sydney 2005 "Chui Lee Luk says she cooks from the heart. She also cooks in the wake of Tim Pak Poy, one of Australia's most refined and interesting chefs. He sold her the business after sixteen years here. Claude's is like a special private dining room where you wait to be surprised by perfume, texture, ingredients and sheer artistry."

SMH Good Living Good Eating Mathew Evans 5/10/04 score 18/20 "Chui Lee Luk has done the impossible. She's achieved a virtually seamless change from the previous chef's reign at this Woollahra institution, yet maintains those delicious culinary acrobatics."

SMH Good Food Guide 2005 Good Wine List "For a generation of diners Claude's has been an intelligent refuge from the ephemeral fashions of Oxford Street and the city at large. After a decade under Tim Pak Poy, it's time for another metamorphosis in this veritable institution, with Singaporeborn sous chef Chui Lee Luk taking the keys to that firmly closed door. Expect gentle evolution rather than revolution"

SMH Good Food Guide 2005 Best Vegetarian "If you think few can do what happens here with meat, wait until you see what they do with vegetables."

The Age AGFG 2005 "ALWAYS interesting, occasionally confronting, but usually nothing short of astounding"

Gourmet Traveller Australian Restaurant Guide 2005 *** Good Wine List "The individuals driving Claude's may change, but there's an assured constancy to this institution; the culture and history of the restaurant also exerts its own pull. So it s that Chui Lee Luk takes over the restaurant from her mentor Tim Pak Poy, who had in turn taken over from Damien Pigrolet, inheriting a legacy of good taste and restraint, and a mandate to maintain Claude's place at the forefront of Australian dining."

Sydney Cheap Eats 2005 "These small rooms in Oxford Street have been blessed by a continuous series of very fine chefs in the French tradition since first opened by Claude Corne in 1976. In 1981, Claude sold the restaurant to former employee Damien Pignolet, and in 1994, Pignolet sold it to his sous chef Tim Pak Poy. In July 2004, Pak Poy continued the tradition by selling Claude's to his sous chef, Chui Lee Luk, because, he said, he had "been training Chui to buy a restaurant since day one as that was her stated aim"."

SMH GFG 2004, Score 18/20, Good wine list, 3 Hats-World Class,'elegant simplicity...there are no wow-factor views, gimmicky cocktails or hip food-fashion statements to distract from the eating experience...Service is from the restaurant's longstanding staff is forever joyful and unruffled.'

Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide Australia 2004, Excellent wine list, 3 Red Stars,'a relentless focus on creative excellence...food is adventurous and occasionaly playful...wine list is small but distinctive and intelligent...mature, longstanding staff ensure all elements of the dining experience come together'

Sydney Morning Herald, Good Food Guide, 2003, 3 HATS

The Weekend Australian, 25/1/03, Phil Stafford,'Claudes limited dining space and reputation for excellence...you should allow at least a fortnight(to book)'