“Theatre restaurant”. Words to strike fear into any heart and evoke visions of blousy frauleins juggling steins of ale and yodelling. Or conference-quality food served by actors in dracula suits, swooping around the tables and demanding “audience participation”. So when I saw R by Raita Noda, the new omakase restaurant in Sydney’s Wunderlich Lane precinct, describe itself as a “theatre restaurant”, I was wary. Would the chefs – the eponymous Raita Noda himself and his son Momotaro – appear in a cloud of dry ice? Slice sashimi mid-air with a samurai sword?
Mercifully, as I work my way through the restaurant’s 10 modern Japanese courses with just 14 other diners, I find none of this. What I do discover is a delicious and engaging procession of very well executed, seafood-forward dishes, all prepared by the Nodas in front of our eyes. There are a few jazz-hands flourishes – a glass bowl is lit from within like a swimming pool at night, a mysterious box appears that we’re not allowed to open until we’re given the word – but the real show is the food.
We begin with four raw seafood entrées. First, a medley of jellyfish, abalone and tomato consommé, electrified with jolts of garlic. I love the way Japanese cooking teases with textures: here we get the crunch of jellyfish crackling around the soft petals of abalone. Paradise prawns stray towards Mexico with their citrus-soaked habanero salsa and there’s more snap and crackle in the form of a very good salad of New Zealand storm shell and surf clams.
The theatricality – or more accurately, the interactivity – starts amping up around course seven, when we’re invited to diginto bowls of “KFC” – that’s “Kentucky Fried Crab” – with our hands, gnawing into the coriander-scented flesh of the crustacean’s legs. At course eight, a pot of boiling cottonseed oil is presented to each party and we cook our own wagyu cubes and rice cakes and veggies. It’s exactly the right amount of fun without being frivolous.
There are niggles. At $280 a head it’s not cheap, especially on weekends where a $60 minimum drink spend is mandatory (a total that’s all too easily reached: wine by the glass and even non-alcoholic tea both start at a rather alarming $25). At that price, I would expect lacquer chopsticks, not disposables. But I’m charmed and disarmed by the quiet, heartfelt service and most of all the excellent food. They’re the only tricks a good meal needs.
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