From swordfish belly with finger lime to a sashimi selection on a dramatic glass stairway, the father-son team behind R by Raita Noda knows how to coax and balance flavour.
Japanese$$$$
Two hours into dinner at R by Raita Noda, a shiny, brick-sized box appears on the counter and I’m told that I can’t open the latch until “it’s time”. A small gas burner is placed next to the box and a saucepan of cottonseed oil is placed over the flame. A tray of wasabi, lime and salt is presented to guests and house music plays on the stereo. I stop questioning the restaurant’s promise to provide an “immersive journey” and “unforgettable Japanese dining experience”.
This 15-seater, “designed to elevate the omakase experience” (I’m quoting the website again), opened in Redfern’s $500 million Wunderlich Lane precinct in March. It’s taken a few months to write about its $280 tasting menu, largely because there have been so many other restaurants in the mixed use redevelopment to also review.
If you’re the kind of diner who knows the best month for southern bluefin tuna and Tasmanian sea urchin, you may be familiar with chef Raita Noda’s eight-seat Surry Hills “Chef’s Kitchen”. I never rolled the dice on Noda’s omakase at the old digs. Photographs of dishes with gels and smears and, egads, raw fish lollipops suggested some of the ideas had been time-warped from 1995. It didn’t take much to imagine Patrick Bateman hooking into the oysters topped with spherified vinegar “pearls” and banging on about the new Phil Collins.
Restraint isn’t a strong point here, either. Check out the John dory tartare with fennel and sansho pepper cream, served on a crisp made from rice porridge and finished with calamansi juice, samphire, salmon roe and phlox flowers. Or the “Stairway to Heaven” of five different sashimi bites on a tiered glass curve: soy-marinated bluefin back loin with house-made yuzu-kosho on the bottom step; then swordfish belly and finger lime; chutoro (the medium-fatty tuna belly cut) with wasabi; a slip of sea urchin and cuttlefish ravioli, and, finally, otoro (the prized extra fatty tuna cut) licked with a blowtorch to release its rich oils.
Dessert is honey yoghurt mousse, aged house-made umeshu gel, raspberry compote, raspberry crisp, freeze-dried strawberry, fresh strawberry and lemon balm. But the strike rate of deliciousness is so high across the courses, it’s easy to look past the fiddly garnish work. Noda and his son, Momotaro, (the two do all the cooking and serving) know how to coax and balance flavour.
The best courses are the most traditional: an invigorating kombu and bonito dashi brightened with yuzu and boasting lotus root and a fillet of bass grouper; a nigiri procession of raw fish on deftly vinegared rice. As for Chekhov’s shiny latched box, it holds a raw surf-and-turf smorgasbord of Kagoshima wagyu from Japan, a sweet and firm “paradise” prawn, eggplant, okra and a mochi rice cake. Hot oil-dunking times for each ingredient are suggested, and that highly marbled, super-buttery beef really is unforgettable when Noda snr cracks a 2008 Teusner “Joshua” grenache-mataro blend as part of the drinks pairing.
A warning to the noise-averse: you can have a conversation, no problem, but the dance music is far from “background”. Opinions may vary on the interiors, too, which a press release tells me are supposed to “evoke the quiet poetry of a rain-soaked Tokyo night”. Two thousand hanging chains are meant to “cascade like a delicate rain shower across the windows”: I reckon they look like something you might find in a goth day club.
I’m a big fan of the three Star Wars lightsabers fixed above an impressive knife collection, though. Momotaro will let you hold the laser-swords if you ask nicely. With so much of Wunderlich Lane planned and designed to the gills, it’s nice to have two earnest chefs cooking to their own unique beat.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Earnest omakase party
Go-to dishes: John dory tartare; “Stairway to Heaven” sashimi; dashi with bass grouper; assorted nigiri
Drinks: One of the best Japanese whisky selections you’ll find in a Sydney restaurant, plus plenty of sake and a short wine list full of French and Australian surprises, including a few fun vintages
Cost: 10-course tasting menu, $280 per person, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine
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