Iconic Sydney restaurant Tetsuya’s closing in July after 35 years

Tetsuya’s, the eponymous Sydney fine dining restaurant that launched its owner-chef Tetsuya Wakuda into a global food brand, will shut its doors permanently on July 31, ending a 35-year run.

“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,” Wakuda said in a statement.

“We have spent the last 18 months planning the move and the new restaurant so this was not an easy decision, but sometimes things just don’t go to plan.”

Wakuda hoped to relocate the restaurant from Kent Street, a site that has been slated for development for several years. In recent years, the chef has been spotted touring sites in Chippendale, then linked with potential moves to Darling Harbour and Circular Quay.

Wakuda arrived in Australia in 1982 as a backpacker with little food experience but plenty of ambition. He worked for Sydney chef Tony Bilson before opening Ultimo’s in 1987, and then striking gold with the launch in 1989 of Tetsuya’s in Rozelle.

The combination of produce and technique from East and West impressed the critics of the time. The Sydney Morning Herald’s then food critic, Leo Schofield, anointed the newcomer as near the top of the Sydney dining tree.

“Tetsuya Wakuda fuses refined Japanese and classic French cuisines in this small but impeccably run and maintained Rozelle restaurant,” he wrote in October 1989. Schofield declared the food “as good tasting as you’ll find in any of the city’s best BYOs, with the exception of Claude’s”.

As the restaurant grew in stature and collected a trophy cabinet of awards, Tetsuya’s – and its signature confit ocean trout – became internationally recognised as part of Australia’s new breed of food temples.

It also made Wakuda a global culinary figure. He opened a short-lived restaurant in London in 2001, before a more successful and lasting push into Singapore with Waku Ghin.

In recent times, he has opened the spin-off Wakuda eateries in Singapore and Las Vegas. Earlier this year, he added Sagetsu in Dubai to his restaurant portfolio.

Wakuda, who was awarded an Order of Australian in 2005, retained links with his adopted country, but was increasingly stretched managing interests that span the globe. The strain was evident at his mothership Sydney restaurant, which was knocked off the summit of three hats in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2011. It retains a credible two hats.

With Wakuda tight-lipped with staff about the restaurant’s future and a lack of clarity on any relocation, executive chef Josh Raine called time on his six-year stint at the Sydney fine diner in February. Others held on for a relocation, which sadly didn’t transpire.