Circular Quay fine diner Oborozuki combines French and Japanese cooking

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It's probably a tough time to be an upscale fine dining restaurant; especially one designed as a shrine to the fusion of Japanese and French cuisine. (Haven't we done this before and already merged?) But if it is, Oborozuki doesn't show it.

Instead, it's showing. There are sommeliers for sake and wine, and I was just given a huge leather-bound Louis Vuitton trunk. Inside are 40 individual glasses of Japan's famous Kagami crystal, backlit and sparkling like cut emeralds and rubies.

I select one and a white-gloved somme fills it with Hananomai Abysse ($23 for 100ml), an unpasteurized sparkling sake made using a champagne-like process that leaves it crisp and sparkling.

It is a flourish, a ritual, which is almost sacramental. As I am to learn, this is the Oborozuki way.

The Tong Sheng Group (behind Panda Yum Cha and 678 Korean BBQ) have gone all out with their first fine dining restaurant in Australia. The location is hard to beat, overlooking the ferry end of Circular Quay. A magnificent spiral staircase (influencer bait) leads to a cathedral-like, gold-hued double-height room. Upstairs, a second level of three private dining rooms is the domain of dedicated head teppanyaki chef Felix Zheng.

Oborozuki started as high-end omakase, but appointed head chef Daeun Kang in late 2023, after seven years at Aria, to make some changes. Their food is delicate, refined and highly technical.

The expense of the menu ($180/$220 a head) is lightened by the generosity as not one but three appetizers land on the table, followed by Sonoma bread and seaweed butter. Maki roll fingers have the bite of mustard greens, topped with avocado and salt. An incredibly thin tartlet (made with a gyoza wrapper) contains oyster cream, diced kingfish and crisp apple, with a bunch of sea grapes resting on top like a seal. A smoked mussel sits atop a comforting donut with a bright sudachi.

Oh, this food. Overlapping slices of raw coral trout nestled with spicy daikon rolls, clusters of Kaviari Kristal sturgeon caviar and tiny white flowers are so white on white, it's almost bridal.

The Chawan-mushi is bathed in a scallop consommé, which brings wonderfully seared scallops, sea urchin and Jerusalem artichoke fries, paired with a seriously umami Gassan Tokubetsu Junmai sake ($36 for 120ml).

The fusion of French and Japanese is reproduced in every dish, and my drink pairing ($95) flows from wine to sake and back again, with Donggeon Kim on duty to guide our sake experience, and Harold Clouet and Romain Bouquet for the wine (what brilliance). surname of a sommelier).

O'Connor's beef tartare is grainy and rich, warm with fermented chilli and topped with a toasted brioche disc dusted with cured egg yolk.

Some dishes owe their inspiration to Kang's years at Aria. The Maremma duck is one of them; dry-aged for seven days, brushed with red wine and maltose, toasted, rested, cut and grilled. The accompaniments are precise and punctual; a beautiful meeting of jube-like purple carrot with blackberries and a curl of macadamia cream. The duck is a star; ruby red and like a marble high-score beef, paired with a velvety Ermita de Crozes E. Guigal 2019.

It's a bit out of this world, like being in a Japanese restaurant in Paris or a fine French restaurant in Tokyo.

A word: agree on the same number of dishes between you, or you may end up walking away, with one fish brought and the other dessert; something better avoided.

Sake takes over the role of rum for a lovely little baba layered with sudachi curd, citrus cells and citrus granita, with freeze-dried tangerine showered from table-top.

The theater and rituals staged at Oborozuki are reminiscent of Melbourne's high-end Vue de Monde, but there is generosity here, with the sense that everything possible is done for the dining room, not the kitchen.

It's a bit out of this world, like being in a Japanese restaurant in Paris or a fine French restaurant in Tokyo. But instead, we're here in Sydney, where bringing them together seems like a vision of the future.