Bay NineOmakase

Behind the nineteenth-century sandstone of a heritage warehouse on Circular Quay West, ten seats face a counter where the day's eating is decided by the tide rather than a printed menu. The chef builds each sitting around fish landed within the previous twelve hours, so the run of courses shifts constantly, a spine of carefully pressed nigiri flanked by a rotating cast of warm seafood dishes. It is omakase in the literal sense: you leave the choosing to the person opposite, and watch the work happen at arm's length. The room keeps its colonial bones on show, with low light drawing attention to the harbour beyond the glass and the fish on the board rather than any decoration. A sake list running past forty labels gives the meal somewhere to travel, poured as flights or by the glass alongside a short range of Japanese spirits. There is a longer counter omakase and a shorter set menu for those seated away from the pass, but the pleasure is the same, a quiet and exacting kind of theatre, close to the water, built on the simple discipline of serving very fresh fish very well. Book ahead; the counter fills quickly.