Aria, Sydney

Last week, as an add-on to our trip to Sydney for work, the three girls in my team at work (including me!) went for dinner at Aria in Sydney. Aria is a fine dining establishment on the Sydney Harbour foreshore owned by celebrity chef, Matt Moran, and his business partner, and has a sister restaurant in Brisbane (which I went to with my friend Rowan in July).

We started our evening at The Opera Bar at Circular Quay, with a nice champagne cocktail:

As darkness came, we were treated to fireworks and lighting on the Opera House and Harbour Bridge for World Aids Day:

Suitably refreshed and entertained, we headed on to Aria in Macquarie Street, where we were treated to an amuse bouche of sweet potato soup with coconut foam:

We also received complimentary bread - this was the devine sourdough roll:

Moving on to entree, we all ordered something different.  Jess ordered this gorgeous chicken and foie gras parfait with a salad of smoked duck,rhubarb and black pepper:

It looks deceptively like a dessert, but is eaten slathered on bread. 

I ordered six freshly shucked Sydney rock oysters with Thai basil, cracked long pepper and Banyuls dressing:

I love oysters, and this was a nice, light entree to leave plenty of room for the remaining courses.

Lee ordered the Kurobuta pork belly with pork croquette and caramelised apple:

I had this in Brisbane, so I know it was devine.

Moving on to mains, I had the duck with cherry sauce (different to the duck dish listed on the online menu, so I am a little hazy on the details):

while Lee and Jess both ordered the roast lamb with mustard sauce (again, different to the online menu, so I can only give high level details and let the photos do the talking):

To accompany our mains, we ordered steamed broccolini with hazelnuts and lemon oil:

and truffled potato mash (buttery, buttery, buttery but good):

Out came some petit fours to have with our coffee.  We were given lavender truffles, coconut macaroons and raspberry pate de fruit:

then out came our dessert to share - a mango and lime bombe with black sesame tuille and passionfruit sauce:

To complement the glorious food and harbour view, the service at Aria was impeccable - all of the staff were friendly, attentive and thoughtful.

As I mentioned, Aria is a fine dining restaurant, so unless you are in the Business Weekly top 50 richest, you won't be coming here every night.  However, the food has an absolute "wow" factor that you won't get at any other type of establishment, and paired with the impeccable service, this restaurant was worth our bill of $160 per head (including wine and coffee).

1 Macquarie Street

East Circular Quay

Sydney NSW 2000

 Ph: +61 2 9252 2555