Quay Ph: 9251 5600 ; Upper Level, Overseas Passenger Terminal, George St, SYDNEY 2000 www.quay.com.au Modern Australian, $$$, *** for Food & Ambience, Good Wine List Open Lunch Tue-Fri noon-2.30pm Dinner 7 days 6pm-10pm, Closed Some public holidays; Licensed; AE DC MC V Chef Peter Gilmore (30-8-10) Owner John & Leon Fink (24-12-09)

Photo Tony Knox

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). In 2008 entrees were 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 take them in 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 2011 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: *** "Don't even think about skipping dessert. As with the rest of the menu in this, one of the nation's premier restaurants, clever thinking, elegant presentation, and unusual and often rare produce combine to make dishes that will give you pause with the clarity of their flavours"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2010 Score: 18/20

The Australian A List, 50 Great Australian Restaurants, John Lethlean, Necia Wilden, 5-09-09 "Ask three restaurant critics to name their best restaurant and you'll probably get four answers"

Gourmet Traveller 2010 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: ** "Quay's brilliance is built on the foundation of a peerless harbourfront location, a comfortable room and a serious investment in direct relationships with producers. That investment plays out in inventive dishes that are broad in their inspiration, complex in their preparation but all too easy to eat: butter-soft curls of squid and octopus on a silky garlic custard, ringed by slices of tiny radishes and dressed with native violets; partridge breast coaxed to tenderness in butter, paired with squishy partridge dumplings and black pudding and given crunch with chestnuts"

Sydney Eats 2009 "Behind Circular Quay Station.Is there no end to this city's stand-out, fine dining restaurants with gobsmacking harbour views? They've just spent a few squillion updating the rather dated decor here but you might not notice because of that thumping great Opera House glinting away just across the water"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2009 Score: 18/20

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"

Age Necia Wilden, 16-9-2008

Sydney Morning Herald Simon Thomsen, 2-9-2008 Score: 18/20

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 18/20

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

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

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."

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2005 Score 18/20

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2005

Age GFG 2005

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."

Sydney Morning Herald GFG 2004,Score 18/20

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