Flying Fish

Once a feature of Jones Bay Wharf in Darling Harbour, Pyrmont, now Flying Fish is at the Star Casino, a fitting home for it’s fine-dining approach to seafood. It moved in December 2018, and executive chef Peter Robertson has maintained the restaurant’s reputation for stellar seafood dishes.

The loved Flying Fish mud crab with black pepper and curry leaves remains but is finished in the wok (rather than the black-pepper sauce being drizzled on the plate). And and the robata grill has been traded for a woodfire grill; Robertson has perfected his “campfire technique” of placing whole fish in a wire rack harnessed with a handle. This means he can flip it without tearing it and serve a whole fish. And then there’s the seafood platter, which includes diamond clams, smoked mussel with shitake, barbequed split prawn with wakame butter, charcoal roast Moreton Bay bug, and more.

There is also tasting and chef’s table tasting menu that offers kingfish cooked over charcoal served with braised kombu and finger lime; grilled southern calamari served with squid butter, broad beans and crisp potato; and glazed Rangers Valley Wagyu tri tip served with vegetables and pickles. The regular menu offers oysters, caviar, finger sandwiches (Spencer Gulf prawn toast and or spanner crab and mayonnaise), and mains such as coral trout served with peas, jamon cream, asparagus and fig-leaf oil.

To drink try a Flight to Byron, made with Byron dry gin, maraschino umeshu and shiso, or the house Negroni, called Béhz-ness as usual, made with strawberry gin, Campari and Australian sweet vermouth.

This version of the restaurant looks more modern and relaxed, with a series of hand-blown caviar-inspired pendants, in a nod to the hanging glass sculpture that is the centrepiece of the wharfside dining room.