Chef Opel Khan has been cooking for three decades, though he tells us he still gets up most days at 6.30am to prepare for a day’s service at his fancy Potts Point diner, Métisse. He’s a chef dedicated to his craft as much as he is to his customers, warmly welcoming them into his French-leaning restaurant, and explaining the dishes as they are served.
And there sure is a lot to talk about, as Khan has just launched a new luxury degustation menu at Métisse, filled with his trademark creative flair and spectacular plating.
Born in Bangladesh, Khan has travelled and worked all over the world as a chef, managing and consulting for more than 20 restaurants in Australia, Asia and Europe. In Sydney, he owns three restaurants, including Acqua E Farina, and Pizza Boccone, as well as Métisse (and we’re told there’s another venue in the works.) For his new set menu, Khan has drawn on his childhood memories of spices and salt, as well as his travels and love of flavour and technique, to create an experience fit for a special night out.
Take the savoury pea macaron, for example. It’s one of three small appetisers – there’s also white truffle custard topped with caviar; and lobster with avocado – that begins the meal. While very much French in design, the flavours of peas, potato and toasted coconut are South Asian in flavour, taking you back to past holidays; and it’s a delight to eat. Khan’s signature dish called mosaïque also makes an appearance on the menu. Thin slices of bluefin tuna, ocean trout and kingfish are joined together to look like stained glass and are then dressed in a burnt butter sauce and flakes of sea salt. It’s a beautiful, looks-like-art kinda dish, and tastes just as good.
Khan is passionate about working with local Aussie and sustainable produce. His seafood for his 'Fruits der Mer' platter is sourced from the NSW coastline, including Yamba prawns, octopus carpaccio, salmon confit and a scallop, which are all cooked and plated perfectly.
A dish of duck comes out tender and juicy, with crisp and golden skin, while a premium steak of Kobe beef with a score of 12 is served with a celeriac tart and fermented daikon. Got a sweet tooth? Good news – on the menu there’s pre dessert, dessert and petits fours, so all your cravings will be satisfied. And if you would like to sit back and let the experts choose your wine for you, you can opt for a premium French wine pairing curated by the team’s sommelier.
If you don’t have time for the full degustation but are still wanting a taste of the high life, Métisse also offers a petite degustation. Both menus can be made vegetarian and vegan, though Khan needs a 48-hour heads up.
Métisse’s new luxury degustation complete with white glove service costs $300 per person, which we know isn’t cheap. However, the gorgeous ingredients, combined with Khan’s precision, skill and technique will make it worth it for some. So, if you’re into fine dining and are looking for a special night out, this may be for you. You can find out more info and book here.
Read on for our original write-up of Métisse from 2019 by Matty Hirsch.
*****
Affordable luxury? In Potts Point? Is there even such a thing? Well yes, yes there is – and it just so happens to come in the form of a five-course degustation with matched wine(!) for a mere $100(!!) at Métisse. The elegant progressive French restaurant – headed up by chef, author and TV personality Opel Khan – aims to bring back the good old days of haute cuisine, reimagined in new and exciting ways. That might mean duck à l'orange compressed into a terrine or even a riff on tournedos Rossini, the legendary classic starring eye fillet, foie gras and truffle.
The value for money is just as real if you order a la carte, with entrées clocking in at less than $30 and mains that hover between $32 and $58 – pricey on paper, maybe, but not so much when you consider butter-poached lobster ravioli with lobster velouté is up for grabs. And what’s more, a solid half of the concise French-leaning wine list lands at under $100. Who said fine dining had to burn a hole in your wallet?