After 35 years, the immaculate, ritualised journey of impeccable taste that is known as dining at Tetsuya’s will end. The musical tinkle of water in that meditative Japanese garden will cease. The double-clothed table will no longer need pressing to remove the creases of its folds. And that melt-in-the-mouth confit of Tasmanian ocean trout – the dish that put Tetsuya on the map decades ago – will be given its final coating of crunchy, salty kombu.

Now the land is being redeveloped into more sky-tickling, up-thrusting towers. I had been speaking with Tetsuyu Wakuda in early May. He was mourning the loss of the ryokan-like pavilion building and its beautiful Japanese garden, but was excited about relocating the dining institution and reopening in October at a yet-to-be-named site.

Days later, that deal (revealed to be with Star Entertainment in Sydney) fell through, and Wakuda announced late last month that the restaurant would close for good, on July 31.

“I can do nothing about it,” he says, simply. “We were dealing with a company in the middle of big changes, and in the end it just didn’t suit our collective vision.”

The current Tetsuya’s site will be replaced by a multistorey building as the whole area is redeveloped. “There was no point fighting it, so we are moving out on August 1.”

Veteran restaurateur Neil Perry, of Margaret in Double Bay, says that particular building was so close to Tetsuya’s heart that he had suspected for some time there wouldn’t be a sequel.

“It’s so extraordinary, with its underground car park and garden, it would be impossible to find anything that would match its grandeur,” Perry says. “And Tets doesn’t need to do anything that isn’t special.”

The story of Tetsuya Wakuda began in 1982, on his arrival in Sydney, having packed little English and a lot of dreams. He fell into a job with chef and restaurateur Tony Bilson, learning French technique in the kitchen. Somehow this fused with his Japanese heritage at his first restaurant, Ultimo’s, in 1987, and then Tetsuya’s in Rozelle in 1989. The move to the former Suntory site on 529 Kent Street was in 2000.

At my last meal at Tetsuya’s, in 2022, then-head chef Josh Raine sent out dishes that were poised, accomplished and perfectly presented, albeit with few dramatic statements of intent. It’s not that sort of place. It’s Tetsuya’s.

There was wagyu, tuna tartare, THE ocean trout, marron, and chocolate dessert; seatbelt-safe and close to perfect, with gentle plays of bitter-sweetness. An edge of acidity through tart radicchio, say, with sweet pickled shiitake lined up like an armadillo over rich, marbled beef.

The real legacy of the Tetsuyan era is the legions of chefs who have been part of the Wakuda family tree, including Martin Benn (Sepia), Phil Wood (Ursula’s), Dan Puskas (Sixpenny), Darren Robertson (Three Blue Ducks) and Dan Hong (Mr Wong), with countless others spread across the world, now cooking in the United States, England and Japan.

Benn was Wakuda’s head chef at Tetsuya’s from 1998 in Rozelle to 2007. There, he met Vicki Wild, who had been running the office and restaurant since 1996, and the pair went on to open the acclaimed Sepia restaurant in Sussex Street.

“He was such a massive part of our lives,” says Wild. “What a life-changing time it was. He taught us everything, literally, about the art of hospitality.”

Benn, now juggling new projects in both Melbourne and Sydney, says: “Tets is part of a generation of chefs that has shaped Australian cuisine, and created the benchmark we all adhere to today. He is the ultimate trailblazer, the ultimate host, restaurateur, chef and hospitality guru.”

For Benn, an English chef who had been cooking heavy French food in Britain since he was a teenager, it was an entirely new style of cooking.

“It had that lightness and deftness of touch and I just thought to myself, this is what I want to learn.”

Benn credits Wakuda with the essence of his own cuisine. “I am the chef I am today because of him, and forever thankful for that.”

‘Tets is the ultimate trailblazer, the ultimate host, restaurateur, chef and hospitality guru.’

Martin Benn

Despite all the accolades Wakuda has garnered – spread as thickly across his career as that crunchy kelp on his signature dish of ocean trout – he is still a humble, modest and hard-working perfectionist. It’s because he is Japanese, he says, but also because he is Australian.

“I am an Australian migrant,” he told me, speaking from Singapore. “Australia itself is actually multicultural, and all migrants can feel at home in Australia. Australia is also multi-climate, and chefs from any country in the world can grow what they want here.”

His fondest memories of the decades spent at Tetsuya’s in Kent Street are of his restaurant family. “I have been so lucky to have so many amazing staff come through the restaurant, most of whom would go on to do amazing things worldwide.”

Wakuda has cooked for some of the biggest names in politics and showbiz, but the ones who stand out to him are those who were comfortable in their own skin rather than needing the trappings of fame.

“Bob Hawke stands out because he was so down to earth and friendly,” he recalls. “And the members of the band AC/DC were all absolute gentlemen and so lovely. I’ll never forget them.”

It’s hard to imagine how many of the famous and infamous have eaten that ocean trout. Perry, a contemporary of Wakuda, recalls having it for the first time in Rozelle, in 1989. “His food was always so restrained and subtle – a combination of absolute simplicity underpinned by the complexity of craft and immaculate timing.”

I remind Perry of a trembling, delicate blue cheese bavarois on the menu that knocked my socks off, back in the day.

“Oh gawd, every time we did a charity dinner together, my heart was in my mouth whether those bavarois would turn out,” he says.

Perry and Tetsuya cooked alongside each other at numerous charity events, with international star chefs such as Charlie Trotter and Heston Blumenthal. “Then we’d all go back to his office, where he had a little yakitori set up, and have dinner together. He is incredibly generous, as a chef and a person.”

If Wakuda’s cooking is marked by one thing, it is his unique fusing of French technique (learnt from the late Tony Bilson) and his innate understanding of Japanese flavours. After that, it is about precision.

“Everything depends on precision and consistency, of the ingredients, the temperature, and the method we use to ensure we maximise the taste of the ingredients,” he says. “From the first dish, to the 100th dish, it will all be the same. All night and every day.”

New Zealand-born chef Luke Powell, founder of LP’s Quality Meats, remembers reading Tetsuya Wakuda’s cookbook as a young chef.

“Ever since I read his book, I’d dreamt of working there,” he says. “He was one of the most famous chefs on the planet. It was like peeking into another world.”

He ended up there working for Benn but remembers it as intimidating. “When I met Tetsuya for the first time, I choked up and didn’t say anything,” he says. “Each day, the entire menu was prepared from scratch by a brigade of 25 incredibly driven, purposeful chefs.”

‘He’s a legend of gastronomy, with an incredible palate and eye for detail, and a truly unique sense of taste and vision.’

Luke Powell, LP’s Quality Meats

The whole team knew the routine and it would be performed like clockwork every single service. After service, the breakdown and cleaning was meticulous, with every inch of the kitchen cleaned and then polished from top to bottom.

Powell left to cook at Mugaritz in Spain, then one of the best restaurants in the world. Three months later, Wakuda rang to offer him the head chef position because then-head chef Darren Robertson (soon to be of Three Blue Ducks fame), was leaving. Powell didn’t think twice.

“I loved working there, and loved being able to talk to Tetsuya,” he says. “He’s a legend of gastronomy, with an incredible palate and eye for detail, and a truly unique sense of taste and vision.”

With LP’s Quality Meats now 10 years old, Powell says he sums up what he learnt at Tetsuya’s in three words: “refinement through repetition”.

“At the time, it drove me crazy to do the same small task so repetitively, but that is the Japanese work ethic, and I realised there was power in the process.”

The Kent Street closure is certainly not the end of Tetsuya as a global force. His Waku Ghin restaurant in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands is going strong, and has earned two Michelin stars every year since 2017. He now has Wakuda restaurants in both Las Vegas and Singapore, and recently opened a venue in Dubai called Sagetsu.

In 2015, Wakuda was the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, and is a much-loved constant at the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants knees-up.

“He’s getting his second wind,” says Perry. “It’s great that he has had such amazing success around the world, and it all started here in Australia.”

But the closure does mean a major life change for this tiny, wise, gentle genius chef, with his quiet chuckle and eye for mischief. He will have homes in Singapore and Sydney, fly from Las Vegas to Dubai, and perhaps one day realise his dream of opening in his native country of Japan. The idea of having a restaurant in Australia seems to be over, but the Australian chapter of his life continues.

“Sydney is still my home,” he says, “but I will have more time to visit friends and enjoy the hobbies I love, like fishing. And I would love to take the time to visit and dine at all the restaurants that have been opened by my former staff. So many of them went on to open something of their own, and I am yet to visit.”

By way of a thank you to the country that adopted him, Wakuda says Australia shaped him, and made him, as a chef.

“Australia gave me that education, the palate, everything,” he says. “That’s why I am still cooking today.”