The more I go to new restaurants, the more I’m struck by the heroic nature of old ones. Sure, the modern crop – in Sydney you might think Silvereye, Sixpenny, Momofuku Seiobo – are intriguing and ethereal. But truth be told, what you gain in whimsy you lose in grandeur. So, Quay, then.

Few places in Australia these days can offer the Big Occasion experience as can Quay, with its trophy cabinet of awards and splish-splashy harbour views that frankly never get old. But for all of that – for all the dining room with its windows to the world, its huge reputation, its price-tag (the tasting menu is $180), its innate flashiness – it’s the intricate details, the small things, that define what it is to dine at Quay.

Look, for instance, at the tiny flowers, the miniscule leaves, the minute vegetables that dot the plate in classic executive chef Peter Gilmore dishes such as spring ewe’s milk curd with broad beans, capers, freekeh, apple, nasturtium and purslane. Each morsel in this bouquet of loveliness is placed for a reason,  be it taste, texture or for sheer beauty factor. Then there’s an immaculate bowl of slow-cooked duck that takes for its bedfellows Asian-hued black rice miso, silky celery heart cream, black garlic and crystal-like little ice plant hearts. Original? Yes. Complex? Indeed. Beautiful? Breathtaking. Don’t be overawed, however, for Gilmore, more than anything, produces food that demands to be eaten, over and above being Instagrammed. Dip your spoon (you rarely need a knife at Quay) into bowls of heaven in the form of a mud crab congee that’s never off the menu, or black-lipped abalone that swims in a umami pool of milk curd, cultured black barley, garlic blossom and smoked kangaroo tail broth. Challenging? Perhaps. But let the chef guide your palate and the rewards are manifest.

Would it be cliché to finish with a snow egg? Not at all, for rarely has a dessert so fuelled a nation’s collective imagination as one. Why? Not just because of its several appearances on MasterChef but because it’s brilliant, an icy, sweet, textural concoction of poached meringue, ice-cream, tuile and granitathat one mouthful renders memorable. Had it before? Then Gilmore’s other signature dessert, the seven-layered chocolate cake, is just as grand.

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