quay

enjoy every minute, from entree to dessert, fully satisfied. the service were really good!
not to mention the great opera house view!
just love it!

my husband and i came here for dinner last week to celebrate achievements this year. we were in for the treat! we arrived at 6.30pm and were the first in the circular glass room where the opera house and bridge were in full view. a beautiful day and lovely to be there with no other patrons to take in the full view . the service is second to none ... we started with drinks , ordered the 6 set menu, with cheese in between dessert - no matching wines as we wanted to enjoy the cocktails and choose our own wines. the new menu is delicious , call outs are steamed mud crab custard , smoked pig jowl (over the duck) and white coral for dessert which was very special - beautifully refreshing (would pick this over the oloroso caramel). everyone is really lovely and we had a very special evening . thank you quay and team!

expectations pre-dinner was through the roof. the restaurant had just been award the three hats again, the location & the billion dollars view, the booking 6 months in advance, the most expensive degustation menu in sydney, and the hype. the view & location is amazing, right across from opera house. the service is attentive & immaculate. all of the food ingredients were luxurious with freshness bursting in your mouth. each course tasted great, however as a whole menu, it was a varying level & types of saltiness & oily/fattiness. there really wasn't much of any different taste (tang, sweet, bitter or spice) until you get to the desserts. highlights for me were the oysters intervention, the hand harvest seafood, and the steamed mud crab custard. the weaker dish was definitely the do it yourself crumpets. overall, the food was definitely nice, but i'm in no rush to head back for a $300 meal anytime soon.

quay is a 3 hat fine dining restaurant located at the rocks. i went there a few years ago and was excited to dine again at the refurbished restaurant. the menu has changed and was more fusion. we had the 10 course degustation, every course was delicious and service was great too

i have mixed feelings about quay. recently visited it for the first time, so was a little disappointed to have missed the snow egg, but was still very excited to experience the restaurant after its recent refurbishment. we were fortunate to get a weekday dinner booking considering i only booked a month in advance, but unfortunately we only had a 2 hour booking for their 6-course menu. 

the best thing about quay is the view. we were seated in the room with full-length glass windows overlooking the harbour bridge to the left, and the opera house to the right. absolutely stunning, and definitely the view to wow any visitor to sydney. the worse part of the dining experience was the limited time to enjoy the degus. whilst i can understand the restaurant wishes to maximise the diners on any given night; if the only options are a 6 or 10 course degus, it is still quite rushed to thoroughly enjoy dinner, especially considering the cost of the meal. 

we were welcomed with very nice champagne, and were given appetisers and the first course quite promptly. we weren't asked if we wanted any beverages, and had to ask the waiters at the end of our first course if we could have the drinks menu. we ended up going with the temperance and wine pairings. the temperance matches were mostly excellent throughout the night, but having wine to match is tricky when you have 6 drinks to consume within 2 hours. on to the food: the initial seafood dish of scallops and octopus was divine and one of my favourite dishes. similarly, the second course of squid pasta and abalone was lovely. the third course of crumpets with roe and cream worked wonderfully together. the fourth course was steamed mud crab custard with asparagus in a seaweed broth. the crab custard was ok, although the broth was subtle and tasty. for main, i chose the smoked pig jowl with razor clams, shiitake and sea cucumber crackling. the jowl was very soft and delicious, but i wasn't a fan of the thick layer of fat on top. the crackling was amazing. lastly, the white coral dessert was very pretty, and whilst i'm a fan of white chocolate, i admit i was probably expecting more flavour considering the reputation of quay's desserts. overall, the food at quay is very good and it's a gorgeous setting for dinner. however, i probably won't be back as i prefer to take my time savouring fine food and not feel so rushed eating my meal with wine pairing.

the food was ok. wasn’t that impressed but the dessert was to die for. the white coral was absolutely delicious! if only you could just go and order the dessert.

my friend came through and got us a dinner reservation on sunday before we flew back to melbourne. very grateful for the opportunity to dine here. as we were pressed for time, we had to opt for the 6 courses instead of the 10.

we were shown to our table and the lady at the front who greeted us was very welcoming. so our tables were upstairs overlooking the harbour and opera house. the view was amazing. however i found the somm or one of the servers being a bit too smart. my friend and i were just browsing the beverage menu and she kept on insisting we choose something thinking we were clueless. the other server that took care of us, was less stiff, still professional but he joked around with us. overall, the food and ambience was definitely outstanding. maybe i would return if it wasn’t such a hassle to get a reservation.

the most elegant and refined restaurant that i’ve been until now in sydney. fine dining with inculcate white tablecloth and the welcoming of the stuff will make feel like an important person. the view is exceptional- harbour bridge and the opera house. like most of the fine dining restaurant they will offer you a set menu created by the chef. each dish comes like a story that will capture the attention of your eyes and mouth in the same time. the wine selection is good i will recommend one in the picture.

perfect, amazing 6 course dinner - loved everything (except for 1 truffle dish), very innovative & taste superb. will return. staff r thoughtful & respectful 😍✌️👌 i wish the dishes are a little bigger 🤤🤤

service is lovely and view is also beautiful. used to get blocked off occasionally by cruise ships.
only gets their hats because of their view
the food is good but not as good as sepia
their signature snow egg however is one of my all time favourites

i have never had a pork dish quite like the fan shell razor clam, shaved shiitake, smoked pig jowl, sea cucumber crackling. the pig jowl meat was buttery and it almost melts in your mouth. replacing the pork crackling with a sea cucumber crackling was a genius way to add extra umami and texture to the dish.

quay rating - new menu in july 2018

had the 10 course meal
sad to say it was average, compared to sepia, bennelong and tetsuya
i had high expectations for quay's new refurbished restaurant and menu.

we had a pork starter, which was nice, it was a blend of pork crackling on a wafer. very crunchy and savoury.

oyster intervention - oyster flavoured dreamy dish. good concept, capturing the oyster profile without actually serving oyster. was not mind blowing, but good techniques.

pea garden - found a black hair on my pea garden . looked gorgeously green but underneath the greenery there was a black hair. immediately sent it back to the kitchen, staff was quite apologetic. i mean i was dining in a 3 hat restaurant paying $275 per person, this was a big effing deal.

hand harvested seafood - star of the show. phenomenal sashimi dish, very fresh take on various seafood and the vinegar dressing enhanced the natural seafood flavours.

sand crab - nice plump claw meat. not mind blowing but very fresh. was told by the waitress that the crab was quite sustainable, claw is used in quay and the rest of its body goes elsewhere to be used by other chefs.

crumpets & truffle butter - standard bread and butter side dish for any fine dining establishment really. truffle season is on so received extra truffles.

tasmanian uni in winter broth - the dish encourages the guest to interact with their dish. broth brought out the creamy flavours in sea urchin and added a nice mellow savoury body. good play on texture, creamy, salty, savoury, fresh.

smoked jowl - solid dish but no skin crackling. just a melt-in-the-mouth 5mm rendered fat layer on the pork. flavours were savoury and smoky but i wasn't digging the fat layer. i left a layer of fat on my dish.

maremma duck with red dates - this one was atrocious. duck skin was so charred it wasn't rendered it was just burnt. it was bitter and the duck meat was so tough and chewy i was appalled. the meat was rare, i was shocked it was chewy. by this stage i just wanted to get it over and done with, so i didn't bother sending the dish back. the gaps between the courses were too long. sepia does a way better job at executing duck, in flavours and texture. horrible dish.

cheese dish - complimentary because i found a hair on my dish earlier. nice gesture and looked artistic but tasted disappointing. it tasted like a bland mild unaged shaving of cheese.

signature quay chocolate cake - complimentary and nice. bring your own candle if you're having a birthday celebration, they don't stock candles. it tasted like how it always tasted, dark chocolate and very rich. thanks quay.

crystallised oloroso caramel prune cream - this dish is not chilled. this was served ambient, which i think ruined the dish. it literally tastes like caramel and cream underneath crushed popping candy that did not pop. it is so ordinary and not mind blowing. like your standard caramel creme and milk cream you could buy from woollies. it wasn't pleasant to eat as it was not chilled. disappointment. why this was part of the degustation is beyond me.

white coral - this dessert is an amazing one. like eating white chocolate ice cream with white chocolate topping. great dessert.

overall my main experience with the refurbished quay was absolutely disappointing. imagine sitting down from 6.15pm and leaving at 11pm because it took that long, and having to pay $275 for the food and extra for drinks. i just wanted to get out of there, as the dishes weren't amazing.
the alcoholic and mocktail drinks were great and they didn't charge me for the white tea i had.
as a farewell gift they gave us a valrhona chocolate bar each, a very nice gesture.
my friend had a vegetarian degustation with us, it was nice, a lot of mushrooms in the menu, but then again the standard menu had a lot of veg to begin with.

the staff was very hospitable, they took my group upstairs to show us the opera house and harbour bridge views from the function room view, and showcased their $500,000 artwork working on algorithm. very cool experience. the artwork is digital and constantly changing depending on weather conditions in tokyo.

like i said the best dishes were the sashimi and the white coral. i would never go back to quay again, but if i have to, i would only order those 2 dishes.
bennelong dishes and sepia disgustation blow the new quay menu out of the water.

the refurbished and redesign quay restaurant and menu by chef peter gilmore is absolutely amazing, the choice of either a 6 or 10 course menu with the option of paired wines and optional cheese course is a great idea. the service staff know and deliver perfect service without being over the top or in your face this is perfect for the revised fine dining concept. with its new layout, reduced covers it's a great experience, it's great not having table clothes just beautiful table tops and the dishes used to present the food do the food justice and show off the presentation. each course and dish is so well presented, using wonderfull intresting ingredients and with every bite you can't wait for the next.

great ambiance, amazing location and the perfect service. the food were tasty, however not significantly better than any other hatted fine dining places. so this was a bit disappointing, however a good experience overall. can’t wait to see what quay will have in store after the renovations.

snow egg was great!

we had the most horrible wine in both of our life...we attracted the word “organic” wine but apparently majority of organic wines don’t taste as good as wines.

we had tasting menu at lunch time on saturday. all dishes were average.