Sitting by luxury appartments and super yachts in the water 50 meters away you could think Lumi Dining is just another power lunch Italian restaurant. The food is Italian and it is degustation. What impressed me the most was high level of thought and technical application while the food remains tasty and comfortable, trademarks of Italian food.

Crab

Sometimes I feel degustation meals get caught up in themselves. A couple of dishes can come out and be more about showing the technical prowess of the kitchen or dishes to test your capacity as a food lover. Raw diced oysters served on a sphere of crushed ice ( Murgaritz, San Sebastian ) Raw razor clams ( Bodega 1900, Barcelona ) are two dishes from high end degustation menu’s that confronted my nerve and left me thinking why? Why not make something hot and delicious?

Oysters & caviar

The Agolotti at Lumi dining come covered in a foam sauce and remains hot tasty and technically astute. Foam serving to keep lightness in the sauce has a purpose, it’s not foam to show us the smarts in the kitchen. A moorish pasta dish, smart, comforting and delicious.

Potato 

Wagyu steak

Uni Gunkan

Mushrooms

Chef Federico Zanellato

Pie

Oysters are packed with Sydney rock  mineralality,  can come with caviar, are one of the raw items on the menu. We had to upgrade on a few. Ceviche of scallop comes with a fresh zesty citrus and celery juice, lip smacking sensation leaves your tongue tingling. Italian Gunkan of uni is also raw, salty on sweetish rice is brilliant start. Simple and technical, Italian Japanese fusion that sits easily in the menu lineup, is tasty and kind of obvious but i’ve never seen this anywhere before.

Cabbage

Potato says the menu. Yes, mashed, fried and served with bone marrow and caviar. Hot, tasty and well delicious. Mushroom reduced and reconstituted into mushroom wafers is a fun snack, the crisp texture perfect at that time in the course line up. Pumpkin seed tart is a crunchy nutty snack working with a wet egg and crab and bowl of macadamia & crab also sits perfectly in the gourmet lineup of courses. Brioche and butter lands about now and is devourable.

Scallop

Tagliolini Black Truffle is an add on menu item. Firm buttery noodles covered in shavings of earthy truffle. A combo available worldwide and a dish made to perfection at Lumi Dining. A contender for best noodles in town.  I wish you could just buy pasta without getting the degustation, so I could go and smash it a dozen more times just to Pepsi challenge the best noodles in Sydney rating i’m working on.

Truffle pasta

Hapuka, wrapped in daikon with a light foam sauce is delicate, subtle and is warm and light, big flakes of white fish fall away, crunch and light acid from the root veg and a foam that keeps it all moist and delicious.

Hapuka

Pork

Hot pork belly next, a thin sliver with a dot of Lumi chimi churi. Another option add on is wagyu. Both hot tasty mouth fulls on the home straight of the meal.

Egg

Desserts of White Chocolate & Sudachi has the right amount of sweet and sour, served like a cracker, keeps the tail end of all the eating light and fresh. Buffalo, another light number, creamy and nutty, foam and crunch. Italian and unlike any Italian food i’ve ever had, delicious.

Buffalo

Chef Federico Zanellato is making exciting and inspirational food. Italian food has now been redefined for me and i agree with Good Food, 2017 Chef Of The Year is a deserved accolade. We spent about $350 per head including all the drinks we wanted, three bottles of exceptional wine found with the assistance of the young gun Som Fabio Sercecchi.

Lumi Dining is an Italian degustation restaurant producing some of the best food in the world. Being hot, delicious and moorish it’s easy to miss the technical wizardry performed in the kitchen for each plate that lands on the table, over and over again. And serving a pie, an Australian staple, you could eat a pie everyday if desired, here delicious, out of context and fun. Plus sitting by the water is beautifully peace full and makes this spot a great lunch option. Simply, dining at Lumi is one of the best meals I’ve ever had.