Chef Josh Niland and his wife Julie relaunched Australia’s most famous fish restaurant on a Paddington backstreet in August,and,well,the new joint is really something.
“Come and enjoy the magic of scale-to-tail cooking across a 12-room boutique hotel and fine diner,” is what the brochure might say. “Let your journey begin with a martini and oysters in the table-service bar,before moving to the elegant dining room.”
Lunch is an a la carte offering of seafood caught by the best fishers in the country;dinner is a seven-course tasting menu. Expect a tart of silky John dory liver pâté with port wine jelly,dry-aged bigeye tuna wrapped,Wellington style,with mushroom duxelles,and pearlescent wood grilled coral trout with a garden of bull kelp and snow pea flowers bolstered by a butter emulsion.
Meanwhile,pastry chef Charlie Hutton’s command of technique is on display in caviar-crowned caneles,and sommelier Houston Barakat’s wine list oscillates between NSW and Piemonte with panache. Much congratulations to our Restaurant of the Year.