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Heresy, perhaps, but the best Peking ducks I’ve had (and I’ve had a few) have come from Cantonese rather than Beijing chefs. In Beijing, it’s all about giant multi-storied dining houses and huge fruitwood-fuelled ovens, with big groups devouring rustic, fatty ducks; an incredible, almost fantastical, experience.

The Cantonese took that concept and restaurantised it, first in Hong Kong, and then throughout the world. They cherry-picked the best bit – skin and meat in fragrant pancakes – and turned Peking duck into a single luxury dish rather than an all-night feast of giblets, livers, duck web, wings, soup and noodles.

All this is to say (thanks for hanging in there), that Sydney has a new Cantonese restaurant that specialises in Peking duck.

Pearl is the eighth and most ambitious restaurant from the Lotus Group, installed on level one of the dashing bevel-edged Quay Quarter building, my favourite of all the new towers on Sydney’s ever-changing cityscape.

The team from Darren Kong Architects has cleverly treated the interior as if it were a stand-alone, tucking in a cocktail bar, private rooms, and even a 30-seat balcony with bridge views. It’s also carpeted wall-to-wall with keen, professional young staff who want to explain your cocktail, bring you menus and pour your wine.

Master duck chef Lin is already a familiar sight in the dining room, first carving meticulous slices of rich juicy skin to present with a little sugar for dipping, then following up with half-moons of duck meat, along with finely sliced accompaniments and particularly good pancakes.

You could even, if you were mad, do a triple-threat duck dinner with duck sang choy bao, duck pancakes, and duck fat noodles. But obviously there is more than duck, with everything from dumplings and barbecue meats, to $300 live lobster, and $200 mud crab.

The Lotus Dining Group has always brought a little showbiz to proceedings, ever since founder Michael Jiang opened Lotus Dumpling Bar in Walsh Bay in 2012. So the signature steamed dumplings are the colour of carrots ($21 for four), filled with prawn and topped with tiny pearls of egg white. Even plump har gau ($21) are skunk-striped with squid ink.

Roast pork belly ($28) is escalated in true HK style as a chequerboard of precise cubes of sweet pork meat, roofed with crunchy skin. Steamed silken tofu ($26) comes sheathed inside a tanned, deep-fried skin topped with a savoury, salty paste of slow-cooked kale; a lovely, interesting dish.

The kitchen is traditional in its sections, each with its own chef. Hong Kong-trained head chef and culinary director Cheung Shui Yip and executive chef Steve Wu cover the overall menu and live seafood; chef Lin is kept busy with the duck; and Lucy Luo and Amy Jiang craft the dumplings. There’s also a dedicated Lotus Dumpling Bar on the ground floor below.

XO sauce makes a cameo appearance with king prawns from the Spencer Gulf ($48). Four big and meaty prawns line up, beheaded and tailed, coated in a politely refined sauce. There’s an excellent chilli oil on the table if you need it.

Smoked soy chicken (half $36) is saucy but feels overcooked, so let’s go back to that duck ($62/$119). IT’s dry-aged for three or four days before roasting makes the skin cracker-crisp while still juicy, which is pretty clever. On its own, the meat feels clean, lean and a little steamy, but when packaged up with all the goodies, it works a treat. Pinot noir is compulsory when it comes to Peking duck, and the 2022 Giant Steps Pinot Noir from Victoria’s Yarra Valley ($98) is fragrant, unfined and unfiltered.

I forgot to have dessert, so we’ll never know about the fried milk toast or the soy milk custard, sorry. What we do know is that more of our towering vertical villages will come complete with their own dining scene like this, and it’s great to see upscale Cantonese in that mix, not just bistros and steakhouses. The duck is in the house.