With a near-perfect score of 19/20, this is now Australia’s top-rated restaurant

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It was 2008. A time of Gossip Girl, Kevin Rudd and, for some reason, cupcakes. I was into Kings of Leon and food – in that order – and, for the first time in my life, I could afford to eat at some of the three-hatted restaurants I’d been reading about for the past decade. Quay would be first on the list, and a budget was drawn up. If my girlfriend and I lived on instant noodles for two weeks, and eliminated negronis from our diet, the snow egg could be ours.

Thankfully, our fun tokens were well saved. Matched wines. Starched linen. That old Dairy Milk-purple carpet that feels as soft as a sponge cake. The Opera House. The Bridge. “Look, they have a little brush for crumbs!” A “sea pearl” filled with mud crab and yuzu. “Is that Delta Goodrem in the corner?” Never mind, here comes the signature snow egg coated in toffee meringue. “A little more Sauternes?” Don’t mind if we do. “Would you like a copy of the menu to take home?” A perfect afternoon.

The Overseas Passenger Terminal restaurant is still Sydney’s flagship fine-diner and if you only spend the equivalent of a new washing machine on one meal this year, this is the place to do it.

The harbour. Soft jazz. Restrained, symmetrical plating. Watchful waiters that never leave a glass empty. Tapioca thickened with confit egg yolk and sea-urchin butter to enhance the crisp flavour of freshwater marron. The White Coral (or the “new snow egg”) featuring aerated, white-chocolate mousse, apple granita, frozen pomelo and feijoa ice-cream. Zip. Zap. Crunch. Boom.

If you only spend the equivalent of a new washing machine on one meal this year, this is the place to do it.

Some history: restaurateurs Tony Bilson and Leon Fink opened the joint as “Bilson’s” in 1988. Guillaume Brahimi took over the pans in 1995 and the name changed to Quay. Brahimi departed two months before the Sydney Olympics (talk about timing) following a deadlock with Fink regarding the sale of a stake in the business.

This paved the way for a young chef named Peter Gilmore to come on board, and Quay has held three hats since 2002. (It was the annual Good Food Guide check-up that brought me to The Rocks four weeks ago.)

There are few overblown adjectives that haven’t been used for Quay under Gilmore’s tenure. Stunning. Heavenly. Sublime.

I’ll spare you the pain of adding to them, except to say the tasting menu’s amuse-bouche tart, featuring an ink-black shell made with three types of seaweed (kombu, wakame, nori) and filled with whipped creme fraiche and topped with oscietra caviar, is the most strikingly beautiful thing I’ve eaten all year.

It’s served with a white-chocolate seashell – God’s own Guylian – cranked up with more kombu and filled with oyster cream. Exceptional. Ethereal. Superb. OK, we’re done.

Next, a rockpool of blacklip abalone, raw scallops and tiny fractals of young octopus is dressed with virgin soy and aged, brown-rice vinegar. Seafood rarely tastes this much of itself.

Bone marrow enriches the dough that yields curls of cavatelli pasta, a canvas for delicate, sweet mud crab, koji butter and purple-on-white, “pin-striped” peanuts. It’s rare you’ll leave without discovering one new vegetable, animal or mineral.

The tasting menu’s amuse-bouche tart is the most strikingly beautiful thing I’ve eaten all year.

A $4 million renovation in 2018 meant it was out with the white linen and in with unclothed, spotted-gum tables. Midnight-blue carpet connects the dining room to the harbour; Adam Goodrum-designed chairs are upholstered in the colours of a forest floor.

While spring is arguably the best time to visit (hello, white asparagus), winter has its own rewards. Smoked oxtail slow-cooked in oxtail broth, say, and fortified with chestnut puree, black garlic and truffle, both fresh and emulsified. Head sommelier Steven Pietersma pairs it with a Parker Estate 2017 “Terra Rossa” cabernet sauvignon that’s all tomato leaf, oregano and blood.

Opt for the eight-course menu and it’s $200 for the standard wine-matching or $250 for the “sommelier’s choice” with more left-field selections. If you’re happy to share the stemware with your dining partner, consider each asking for a different pairing.

A 2023 Ashton Hills Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay brings out the richness of smoked-eel cream lacing young walnuts, sea cucumber “crackling” and Murray cod roe, while a 2021 Venon & Fils Chablis enhances the dish’s savoury elements.

Other tips include checking the Port Authority cruise-ship calendar before booking to make sure you won’t be playing Rear Window with Norwegians on the Carnival Splendour. Don’t miss the optional cheese course (perhaps Long Paddock Bluestone layered with wild-honey jelly). Feel free to ask for more truffle butter with your crumpet.

And if it takes a month of eating only instant noodles for all this, I recommend any flavour of Nongshim or the chicken Mi Goreng.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine