Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [31]
This is our night for Tetsuya’s, the most acclaimed restaurant in Australia, well known in food circles around the globe. Liz made the reservation for us seven months in advance to assure a table. A receptionist leads us through an impressive collection of contemporary art to an elegantly restrained dining room overlooking the spare, contemplative Japanese garden just outside a wall of windows. A waitress brings water and informs us that chef-owner Tetsuya Wakuda does without a printed menu, wanting his staff to describe choices personally. After listening as attentively as possible to the long recitation, both of us order the evening’s tasting menu with paired wines.
The first course offers yellowfin tuna tartar over sushi rice, avocado cream, and tiny firm fish roe. You could easily find a cousin of this in Los Angeles, but not on this level of refinement. Alongside it, the server places a diminutive cup of sweet corn soup with a wee scoop of basil ice cream floating on top. Next comes a New Zealand scampi swimming in a chicken-liver parfait and a grilled scallop on the half shell with its roe, snuggling with lemon and mildly briny wakame seaweed that adds a touch of gelatin to the scallop juices. A Clare Valley Riesling couples well with both of these plates, and like all the wines except the sweet one at the end, it’s bottled in Australia especially for the restaurant.
Then the chef sends out his signature ocean trout confit with ocean trout roe, which the Good Food Guide calls “the most photographed dish in the world.” The Tasmanian fish rests on a bed of fennel that provides complementary anise notes, and the kitchen scatters kombu seaweed around the centerpiece and accompanies it with a glass of Gewürztraminer and a small salad of mixed baby cresses and herbs with a hint of soy dressing. “Luscious,” Cheryl repeats several times, “just luscious.” Spanner crab ravioli follows, filled with bits of the crab and a smooth mousseline and covered with a fine chiffonade of fresh basil that helps to balance its East and West elements. It mates nicely with a lightly oaked Chardonnay.
On to meats and red wines, starting with slices of veal fillet dabbed with a pungent wasabi butter and a Pinot Noir, and after that, young squab on a “risotto” of buckwheat, chestnuts, and Lilliputian Japanese mushrooms matched with a deeply colored Grenache-Shiraz from the Barossa. Both dishes and drinks excel, particularly the deliciously gamy squab, the best rendition of it either of us has ever eaten, with none of the liver taste that often puts Cheryl off.
In the pause before dessert, we reflect on the courses so far, deciding the meal boasts about as much sophistication and refined orchestration as any we can remember. Bill says, “I can recall some dinners where I personally enjoyed the flavors and textures of the food more, but few that left me in greater awe of the talent and ingredients.” Cheryl agrees.
Paired with a Tasmanian iced Riesling, the desserts do nothing to undermine the impression. Number one is a blood-orange-and-beet sorbet with petite cubes of beet gleaming like faceted rubies. The second reminds us of a strawberry shortcake float, with a pureed strawberry mixture and a layer of cream on a biscuit base. The next, a bite’s worth of a blue cheese vanilla bean ice cream with a sauterne pear jelly, makes us frown a little dubiously at first but the components harmonize