This new high-end modern Korean-French restaurant could pick up where Tetsuya’s left off

As Tetsuya’s restaurant closes later this month after a 35-year run, across town, on the corner of Bridge and Pitt streets, Allta restaurant opens its doors on Tuesday, July 9, with a backstory that shares a few similarities with the departing Sydney dining icon.

In the same way a young immigrant, Tetsuya Wakuda, took the then-emerging cuisine of Japanese and gave it a French twist, Allta’s Jung-Su Chang will do the same with Korean and French. The young Korean chef isn’t short on experience on the culinary high wire, having worked for French chef Pierre Gagnaire and retaining Michelin stars for four years straight at Jungsik Seoul as head chef.

When Tetsuya’s opened in 1989, it was under a repressive economic cloud of 17 per cent interest rates. Similarly, Allta opens in an environment of tough trading conditions and high-profile Sydney restaurant casualties, including Lola’s Italian at Bondi, which joined the list of closures over the weekend.

Chang had an opportunity to read the Sydney market before opening the 12-seat Allta when he relocated here last year for the launch of neighbouring sister restaurant Funda. He says Australian diners are less complaining than their Korean counterparts and appreciate the whole package of a restaurant experience.

“Prices in restaurants are similar, but food costs [in Australia] are higher, and labour is about twice the price,” he says.

With a price tag of $325 for 15 courses, one of the dozen seats at Allta is priced at the upper end of Sydney pricing. The food will jump from beef tartare with barley ssamjang on a taro chip to local seafood. “It’s Korean flavour with modern French technique,” Chang says.

“We’ve seen modern Korean in Sydney,” Funda and Allta co-owner Jangho So told the Herald last year when he lured Chang to work in Sydney. “But we’ve never seen it on this level.”

Sydneysiders and restaurant critics will weigh in on that statement as Allta opens, with hopes of replicating the longevity of Sydney restaurant stalwarts such as Tetsuya’s.

Open Tue-Sat dinner

50 Pitt Street, Sydney, alltasydney.com.au