Today, award-winning Japanese restaurant Tetsuya’s announced it is permanently closing after 37 years of sterling service in Sydney.
The news comes after the Sydney fine-diner announced it would relocate from its iconic Kent Street site after 23 years at the CBD venue due to its redevelopment. The relocation was delayed, with the Tetsuya’s team extending its stay on Kent Street until July 2024, almost a year extension on the original closure date of August 2023. At that time, owner-chef Tetsuya Wakuda believed “the journey [was] simply evolving”, stating that “while all of us will fondly miss Kent Street, we are all looking forward to a new home”. The team has spent the past 18 months planning for Tetsuya’s relocation to a new site.
Sadly, the evolution of Wakuda’s eponymous restaurant has come to a close, with the revered chef announcing: “Our plans to relocate Tetsuya’s to a new site after it closes at the end of July have unfortunately not worked out, and I have made the very difficult decision to permanently close the restaurant after 37 years of business.”
Tetusya’s earned global recognition for its degustation menu, which celebrates the Japanese practice of cooking with natural, seasonal flavours, augmented by French techniques. At Tetsuya’s, Wakuda became famous for his vibrant signature dish, ocean trout with celery salad and roe, which was once labelled the “world’s most photographed dish”. Tetsuya’s has been a regular fixture in Gourmet Traveller, ranking number 35 in the 2020 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide.
Wakuda’s famous ocean trout with celery salad and roe
A pillar of the culinary community, Wakuda was awarded an Order of Australia in 2005 for outstanding service to the Australian community. In 2016, Wakuda was honoured by the Japanese government becoming the first internationally based Japanese chef to be recognised as a Master of Cuisine.
Originally from Hammatsu, a small town in Japan, Wakuda arrived in Sydney in 1982 at the age of 22 with very limited English. It was in Sydney, working under decorated chef Tony Bilson at Kinselas, that he first learned to combine French technique with Japanese flavour philosophy. Though it wouldn’t be until 1989 that Wakuda opened Tetsuya’s, then crowded into a small terrace house in Sydney’s Rozelle, before relocating to Kent Street in 2000.
The building, which has heritage value and was designed to create a peaceful Japanese sanctuary in the city, was sold in 2019 to the Teoh family of Australian telecommunication company TPG for $53.5 million. The family also owns an adjoining site on Sussex Street, which will form part of the redevelopment.
Tetsuya’s will close in July 2024. Reservations for the restaurant’s final months of service can be made via Tetsuya’s website.
Looking for recipes by Tetsuya Wakuda?
- Tetsuya Wakuda’s shabu shabu recipe
- Tetsuya Wakuda’s persimmon salad with sesame-tofu dressing recipe
- 6 cocktail recipes by Tetsuya’s
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