Good Service

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Atoboy – New York City – Friday 17 October 2025 – Dinner

Mastery ingredient combinations are evident at this incredibly impressive Korean restaurant. Take a description of a squash dish with gochujang (fermented chilli paste), sage, and fontina cheese. Sounds like something you’d try? 

I wouldn’t normally have squash, but tonight I have the privilege of dining with friends who are locals and first toured me around New York in 2004. Wyatt has been to Atoboy a couple of times already, and knows to trust the flavour combinations. Together with his long time partner Caroline, we order each dish off the prix fixe, as there’s three options for each course. 

We sit back, relax and get ready to enjoy a show of diverse tastes and flavour combinations, that often have us in awe. The “naegroni” aperitif illustrates the impact of the kitchen’s experimentation is not lost in the drinks side of things.

The incredibly impressive squash comes draped in a blanket of fontina cheese. There is no telling what an incredible flavour profile will greet your taste buds as you take your first bite. It has very good company though. Alongside, bite sized squid snacks are bursting with flavour too. Insanely, the delicious prawns with kimchi, seem to have less impact, yet are superb in themselves.

Earlier we’ve begun with sea urchin atop black quinoa, which feels like a special treat given how normalised starting with other luxuries like oysters has become. Bluefin tuna is served generously in cubes with carrot, smoked trout roe and nuruk (traditional Korean fermentation starter). That first few polite chopsticks to taste has us all going back for more, no less politely, but with a certain extra vigour.

The fluke with chojang (sweet and spicy dipping sauce), cucumber, and perilla, demonstrates both the subtlety of the highlighted protein, and its wonderful accentuation in combination. Jimmy Nardello peppers, a sweet Italian variety, which are not hot, served with smoked soy, horseradish, and radicchio, looked to be the weaker dish, but like the squash, this was not the case.

In the mains (US – “entrees”) there was a clear winner for me with the oxtail, which had enough difference to be interesting, but the familiar gaminess that I personally love. Thinly sliced pork with a sea of yellow sauce, potatoes, sunchoke, and plenty of herbs easily eclipses the Spanish mackerel dish which was perfectly cooked, but the weakest dish I tried.

The controversial aspect of the evening was the fried chicken. The story goes that many come for the prix fixe to simply add the chicken (though I’d imagine they come away as gushing about the whole meal as I did!) Wyatt initially looked to our waitperson on whether to order two and was suggested to start with one. The upsell is not a thing here it appears. Immediately upon touching down on the table, we requested the second, knowing that this perfectly treated piece of fried chicken must be tried several times to confirm it is in fact perfect! And yes it was.

Caroline and I had enjoyed a glass of the Ernest Vineyards Chardonnay from Sonoma, and it was time to have a light red with some of the mains, which was a wine made by Arianna Occhipinti from Sicily using a grape variety I cannot remember trying called Frappato. It was a nice light versatile match to the mains, including the mackerel. Earlier, Wyatt had ordered a traditional Korean rice wine called White Lotus Makegeolli, made by Shinpyeong Brewery, and he loved it.

For dessert we stayed true to the course we had set, and ordered both available. The SuJeongGwa (traditional Korean punch) granita was by a small margin my favourite, with the curious combination of burrata cheese, lychee yoghurt and walnuts working together to provide that sweet and savoury balance to Asian dessert. The goguma (sweet potato) ice cream with chestnut, black tea, and date, was really not far behind, and had a sweeter profile but still with restraint. I really liked the biscuit to add texture, and the walnuts for the same reason in the former dessert. Across all of these dishes for the evening it left a sense of awe as to how they were created in the first place.

As we caught up it was easy to miss some of the intricate details, and service was one where I didn’t feel there was any obvious improvements that might be made (even the upselling!) 

Here at this minimalist styled restaurant the interest points and colour to the meal is all on the table, and in my case, with the company surrounding those dishes. Atoboy is a brilliant restaurant in a sea of them here in New York City. 

Atoboy
https://www.atoboynyc.com
43 East 28th Street, New York
Dinner 7 nights
+1 646 746 7217
info@atoboynyc.com

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Firedoor – Surry Hills, Sydney – Tuesday 10 June 2025 – Dinner

Well, that was a surprise. Seems I should take more note of the places that I have on my list. I rocked up, and little did I know I would be at Firedoor for a good few hours working through the tasting menu.

I’m thinking about the absolutely beautiful toasted marshmallow that I finished off with, thinking about the saltiness the lamb rib, thinking about how good the tataki kangaroo was. I’m thinking about the marron with finger line. It was a very, very good meal.

Tataki kangaroo, wasabi oil, purple turnip

It’s so hard to compare places, but I will say that this experience took me by surprise. It’s so cool. The kitchen’s cool. The whole concept is very cool. Fire touched food is not a new concept but here the treatment with heat is more diversified.

There are staff all over the place, though there is still order. Dining up on the bar, watching the chefs feels like a privilege on bar stool “table 68” as it is often shouted out. It is great service helped by the fact I’m on the end of the bar, where it meets the entry to the kitchen. So even when small mistakes are made, they’re corrected quickly.

Quails egg, pork broth, Brussel sprouts
Bread is a course (deservingly)
Spanner Crab

For once, the weakest dish is the first, surprisingly as I normally love any crab. Here spanner crab is treated uniquely, and while beautifully presented, it doesn’t cut it for me, but everything else does. Next I have the tataki kangaroo that I was talking about earlier, with purple turnips. It is brilliant. Kangaroo is becoming such an iconic dish in Australia, and more and more places are doing it well. In this case, doing it well includes the chef cutting it right in front of me with a very sharp knife and letting it rest for what must have been at least fifteen minutes. Added are precisely cut purple radishes after they have been subjected to severe heat. It’s the yeast dressing with wasabi oil that brings it all together so brilliantly.

Then there’s dishes like the lamb rib. I took three absolutely delicious bites. It’s so good. There’s a complicated process involved that I cannot explain, but it leads to a brilliant result. The other rib later on is wagyu. Cooked medium rare, perhaps more on the rare side, it is also beautiful, but the star on the plate is the artichoke. It is immaculate. Fire on vegetables is something that should be used early to get children on side, as it brings out so much flavour.

The marron is huge. Finger lime marries well, adding some texture, and it’s all delicious together. The chef sitting on the bar to the left of me manages to scoop out all of the residual marron meat. My effort is embarrassing, but at least I was able to access the claw. On the seafood spectrum, there is also the intricate calamari, cut very thinly in a rich pork broth, with a quail egg cooked in the middle. The dish is unusual. You mix it around once you’ve taken in the presentation, and the combination is fantastic.

Dessert comes as two. It starts with a refresher, which is a tradition I’ve always enjoyed. The mandarine granita is tasty to start, with a leaf of Mexican marigold, which really adds a new element with delicious custard at the base. Finally, the main dessert is the beer ice cream. It’s a Cooper’s stout ice cream, covered in cream, with Federation Chocolate from Tasmania on top. An enjoyable ending to a tremendous meal.

Finishing off with a toasted marshmallow

The wine list is interesting, diverse, and very reasonably priced. One tip I have for any fine dining wine list is to trust the wines by the glass. There is no way the sommelier is choosing any wines that will be uncomfortable, or create doubt about the next selection. When you trust the list, you can choose the more unusual wines, or at least ask about them to decide whether you will take a step outside of your comfort zone.

In this spirt, I tried the Quinta do Ermizio, Electrico, which is a combination of Loureiro and Arinto from Portugal. It is very reasonably priced, a great light introduction into the evening, with crispness and acidity. More serious in my opinion, comes the Bicknell Applecross Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley. I order it a little early and save half of the glass for the marron. Both reds I try are from further afield like the Portuguese wine. The first is a Nebbiolo by Menotti Rosavica, and the other is a Cabernet Franc by Les Athletes du Vin from the Loire Valley. Sometimes I like to stick to recommendations on what matches with certain dishes. In the case of the Nebbiolo, I just simply felt like a well chosen Italian wine from the wine team at Firedoor.

Perhaps this experience isn’t for everyone. There is some expense in having only a tasting menu, and a lot of rich dishes through the courses. For someone who loves diverse ingredients, treated to a lot of heat and fire, the expense is worth it. People dining here are as into the concept as the kitchen and floor staff. You can feel the excitement. When a chef douses marron with what looks like molten lava it is hard not to stand and applaud.

Firedoor
https://firedoor.com.au
23-33 Mary Street, Surry Hills, NSW
Lunch Fri & Sat; Dinner Wed-Sat
02 8204 0800 
info@firedoor.com.au