BEST FINE DINING RESTAURANT

THE MOST EXCITING WAY TO BLOW YOUR WAGES ON A MEAL IN SYDNEY

SEPIA

SYDNEY

Here at Time Out, we love our mid-range restaurants, but believe there is also a place for those really special places where you leave feeling a bit star struck and totally inspired. Head chef Martin Benn and venue director Vicki Wild have created such a place in the restaurant they co-own with seafood wholesaler George Costi, Sepia. Every dish here tells a different story. Take the bonito. Tender slices of the raw fish top a crisp bird’s nest of fried potato strands, and hidden within is a lightly cooked quail egg, the yolk soaking the rest when you cut into it. On top is a little pile of caviar. The dish as a whole is Benn on a plate: the English builder’s son’s fry-up of egg and chips, but with the Japanese refinement he learnt under Tetsuya Wakuda. Fork underneath a pile of what appears to be autumn leaves and you’ll find the most vibrantly pink venison sitting on a bed of silky roast pumpkin puree. Crack the top of ‘the Pearl’ as you would a soft-boiled egg and watch the sugar-shell collapse as its filling of frozen ginger mousse powder and finger lime pearls is revealed. Try it with a yuzu-infused sake – the drinks list here, curated by sommelier Rodney Setter, is as fascinating as the food. ‘Winter Chocolate Forest’ is a rubble of aniseed praline and almond brittle, chocolate crumble and green tea ‘moss’ topped with chocolate twigs and blackberry sorbet. Crystallised fennel fronds recall the frozen hedgerows of colder climes. It’s deeply textural, the elements rummaging about in your mouth, gradually playing off each other. Sepia takes you to another place and leaving it is a bit like coming out of the cinema after a matinee. That’s what a fine dining restaurant should do: whisk you away into its world. 201 Sussex St, Sydney 2000. 02 9283 1990. www.sepiarestaurant.com.au. Dinner Tue-Sat 6pm-late; lunch Fri, Sat from noon.