With omakase being all the rage in Sydney as of late, we made considered and concerted efforts to snag a booking at the ever popular Kuon Omakase. Once secured (and a booking for two much easier than four) it so happens we were both visiting in the same month, so have summarised the entire Feeds For Three experience of Kuon Omakase in this post. Omakase is a Japanese word which involves leaving the menu up to the hands of the chef to dictate and prepare and for us as customers to sit back and enjoy. Note: Only available in set menu and limited opportunity to make dietary requests.

Location: Shop 20/2-58 Little Hay St, Sydney NSW 2000
Price: $200-$250 per person for set menu, not including drinks
Website: https://www.kuon.com.au/
Social: https://www.instagram.com/kuon.omakase/?hl=en

Melissa: 4/5, not perfect but a unique and relaxing experience

In summary, it was a lovely, relaxing and educational experience. I enjoyed the slow pace of the meal and service, coupled with being able to observe the methodic cutting, prepping and plating of the dishes from close proximity. It brought a welcome juxtaposition to what the traditional dining experience is. The restaurant was quiet and guests spoke softly, the line was blurred between kitchen and dining room and the theatre of a dish arriving at your table replaced by a more cohesive journey along with the chef.

Whilst the experience was bastardized by me (and everyone else) whipping out their mobiles to take snaps of every dish and videos of the chef at work, I’ve come to accept that as a necessary evil to sharing my thoughts and views with readers of Feeds For Three.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The entrees (for lack of better word) at Kuon consisted of a small sized, super fresh oyster, bass grouper with asparagus and kelp and a cuttlefish cut into thin noodle strips served over sea urchin with caviar. With caviar and sea urchin already featured in the first three dishes, we were given somewhat of a hint of the rich ingredients soon coming our way. The favourite fish here was the bass grouper with asparagus, it was coated lightly with an oil or sauce that added hints of saltiness with the kelp.

Next followed some heartier entrees – first up: a light dashi stock with tender mushrooms, a prawn and a ‘prawn cake scallop’ (sort of like a fish cake made of better ingredients). The second was the Kuon signature handroll with the fattiest toro, sea urchin and roe. This was delicious, everything you want in a handroll with the rich sea urchin and fatty tuna balanced out by the salty roe and rice coated ever so lightly with soy sauce. Finally we were served deep fried monkish liver. This is known for being a supremely ugly fish, and normally I would have qualms over eating liver, but, it was deep fried and came with a tempura dipping sauce which made it yummy.

The next part of the dining experience was two rather hearty dishes, a grilled tooth fish marinated in sake and served with two pieces of picked daikon and abalone steak in butter. The tooth fish had a lovely charred flavour (we saw the chef use his blow torch on it right in front of us) with its skin curled from the heat. The abalone steak was ridiculously rich – it was served with soy sauce, butter and sauce made from abalone. This was steamed perfectly and had a nice bite to it. Given the thicker cuts of abalone, the rich sauce did not overpower the dish at all.

The omakase sushi experience came halfway through the meal. I’ve ranked the individual pieces from 1 to 9 on how much I enjoyed it for your reference. Not every dish was amazing but some highlights included the imeradore (a fish I had not heard of before and was super delicious) served with a touch of caviar, the fattiest tuna (light pink in colour from how well the fat was blended into the tuna flesh) and the eel, fatty and lightly brushed with soy sauce.

The remaining tuna items were also delicious, and it was almost mesmerising to watch the chef make each piece one by one for everyone to eat. The hand movements to press and shape the rice were so confident it was a real experience to be so up close and personal with a master in his craft. The scallop was fresh and soft, the prawn and snow crab (super sweet) were also lovely but overshadowed by the other sushi. And finally, I was not huge fan of the mackerel – normally I love grilled mackerel but this was still rather too undercooked for my liking.

With the trouble it took to secure the booking, we opted for the add-on so we could enjoy the ‘full’ Kuon experience. This cost $25pp on top of the $200pp meal and were tempura pieces of sea urchin. They were rich and lightly deep-fried. Delicious, but I think it can be skipped if you’re not a massive sea urchin fan. Definitely not a highlight dish of the experience, so skippable in my opinion.

The final dish to round out the night was a huge sushi roll called the Fito-Maki Roll. It was a giant, 12 ingredient roll of sushi (picture taken with hand for reference) with light soy sauce rice. It was a struggle to eat but an amusing and unique dish. I could identify asparagus, egg, salmon, kingfish, tuna, cuttlefish, fish roe, mushroom, calamari (?) but not all 12 ingredients.

Finally the night rounded out with a tiny tamago and some seasonal fruits. The tamago was soft and fluffy and sweet. Even though I watched the chef carefully cutting the fruits and plating, I still couldn’t believe it when they put up a dish with half a grape slice on it in front of me – why not just give us the whole grape and save the labour? (Perhaps I haven’t gotten properly into the spirit of omakase yet.)

James: 3.5 out of 5 – My first omakase experience that I enjoyed but not worth it for the price.

This was my first omakase experience and I went in not sure what to expect aside from sushi which I was hyped for. To begin with, we had a whole list of seafood based starter type dishes to go through before we got to the sushi. Pictured above are the first six items on the menu, with my personal favourites here being the Awabi Chawanmushi and the Sunomono Moriawase.

The Awabi was a Japanese egg custard with Abalone and Abalone liver sauce, a very warm and hearty type of dish. Once all mixed up, the sweet custard of the egg balanced with the saltiness of the sauce and the abalone was cooked perfectly, chewy as expected but still easy to bite into. Following that was the Sunomono which featured arkshell, tigerprawn, sea grapes, watermelon and sweet vinegar jelly. Once again a very well balanced dish mixing saltiness of the seafood with sweetness of the fruits. The arkshell and tigerprawn were really fresh and tender while the fruits and snowpea were refreshing for the palette.

While the next three dishes (as pictured) were also decent, none of them amazed as I may have hoped. Nonetheless with only 6 dishes in we had already had a huge variety of seafood from oysters, prawns, abalone, scallop, sea urchin, tuna and octupus with many more to come.

Next up was the Grilled Snow Crab, pictured left which was well cooked, brimming with meat and a sweet, subtle taste that went nicely with some lemon. The Sea Urchin Tempura was an additional add on that cost $25 per person, and although I’m not a big fan of sea urchin, I decided to try it any way. Can confirm it did not change my mind about sea urchin and despite the tempura batter being nice and light, it could not save the dish for me. For those that do enjoy sea urchin however, you’ll likely very much enjoy this, so give it a go!

Onto the omakase sushi which was the main part and my favourite of the experience, a range of sushi prepared on the spot by the chef so you can watch and appreciate how it’s all done. The numbers in the caption of the images below, are my personal rankings of the sushi and which ones I enjoyed the most – 1 being my favourite.

The first three tunas were all so good, especially the Otoro and Chutoro which are the fattiest parts of the tuna from the belly which practically melt in the mouth. I really enjoyed the prawn, the fresh salty flavour balanced by the rice and kick from the wasabi. Both the Johny Dory and NZ fish were also really good, but the stand out and my favourite was the Eel. Plenty of flavor, a sweet and salty glaze of teriyaki-like sauce painted onto the eel before it was popped in the mini oven which made for a perfectly cooked eel sushi that was soft and flaky.

Finally to end the meal was a Futo-Makio Roll featuring assorted ingredients rolled into one giant sushi and divvied up. This was also really good, a mix of fish like tuna and salmon, balanced by veg like cucumber and mushroom to bring crunch and freshness. A good final dish that I really enjoyed and was lucky to get a big piece of tuna lol. To wash it all down, we had Akadashi Miso Soup and Seasonal Fruits as our mini dessert to freshen up the palette after our 2.5 hour feed.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I enjoyed Kuon overall especially for the omakase experience and there were some top notch parts of the meal that I’m happy to highlight. In saying that, for $200 per person for the base menu (not including add-on or drinks), no dish amazed me so considering the price I can’t honestly say it’s worth it. While I understand the skill and technique involved as well as the cost of premium ingredients, it’s hard to justify that price point but I would still recommend trying Kuon Omakase if you’re an avid seafood and sushi lover.