Aria

Happy birthday to Aria, which turns 10 this month. That's 10 years of hardcore Sydney views, of first-daters taking photos of their main courses, of corporate schmoozers ordering high-status wines and of overseas visitors gazing love-struck at the Opera House. It's ironic the restaurant that has hosted so many birthdays and anniversaries should itself have a birthday. (Existential question: if you have a birthday that is not celebrated at Aria, have you really aged?)

So what's changed? Co-owners Peter Sullivan and chef Matt Moran are still here, when not at the gym, with their families, or clocking in at the new grill-centric Brisbane Aria.

Blue-eyed, sun-tanned and everybody's mate, Matty appears to have modelled his business plan on that of early Gordon Ramsay, minus the nasty bits. Ergo, he is a fully fledged celebrity chef, Audi ambassador, international airline food consultant, television presenter, radio commentator, cookbook author, newspaper columnist and household name.

Aria, too, has grown, with two function rooms, terrace and a looky-likey Gordon Ramsay chef's table, catering for up to 300 a night fed by a staff of 75. It's hard to get a table even on Sundays and Mondays. Fridays? Tell 'em they're dreaming. That's what two chef's hats in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide for eight of the past nine years gets you.

Yet Aria's last review in the pages of Good Living was its first one and that was so long ago it was written by me. So here goes…

It's still a thrill to walk into that curvaceous room and see Sydney at play around the quay. A makeover has luxed the dining room - padding chairs, triple-clothing tables and installing a Joseph's coat of carpet that borders on the lairy. The place has a cosy, comfortable corporate buzz echoed on the menu, with its modernised classical French and fashionable forays into Asian and Spanish.

An intense and fruity little appetiser of tomato veloute and olive foam hits the table first, tasting like a souped-up V8. Next is a major statement that suggests head chef Ben Turner recently went to Spain and came back with more than a lousy T-shirt. Fat scampi and tempura-battered cauliflower play ring-a-rosie around a mix of sherry jelly and cauliflower foam, topped with pistachio and jamon crumbs ($46), all nicely judged and cleanly flavoured.

A long-standing Aria favourite, Peking duck consomme ($32) is a deep bowl of intensely sweet, warmly aromatic duck broth strewn with shiitake and enoki mushrooms, shavings of abalone and plump, ducky dumplings. The expertly clarified consomme not only has depth but length of flavour.

Main courses are safer, less edgy, and less rewarding. A dish of quail reads well, with its asparagus, poached quail egg, pickled carrots and walnut dressing ($52) but I am beginning to think sous-vide cooking is designed to suit the kitchen far more than the diner. The crumbed quail legs are cute and crunchy but the slow-cooked breasts have that vac-pack, homogenous tenderness - and both are marred by a small fleck of bone left after de-boning.

Crisp-skin jewfish ($52) served on a soupy parsley risotto comes with the added status of two Crystal Bay prawns but rocks no boats, the skin being more spongy than crisp. An excess of butter could be to blame, or the warming tray. Another long-term Aria player is a deep bowl of potato puree ($15), mounted with enormous quantities of butter and infused with Terrabianca truffle oil until it's richer than - er, is anybody still really rich any more?

Pastry chef Andrew Honeysett then riffs with single-origin coffee on a dessert platter of warm coffee cake, coffee parfait and espresso ice-cream ($24), teamed rather capriciously with coconut sorbet and passionfruit.

There are wobbles. A cocktail is spilt on the way to the table, turning the pristine cloth into raspberry rings of shame. A young waiter delivers appetisers to two consecutive tables with the air of dropping off a parcel in a hurry. I miss the kind, funny Peter Bartlett, who walked the floor here until his death three years ago but his legacy lives on in a team of mostly young, keen and sociable waiters.

The award-winning Aria wine list is of genuine interest in its breadth and balance, and wine is discussed with first-hand knowledge rather than bookish learning. The wines are neither cheap nor rip-off, with a soft and spicy 2007 Mac Forbes Woori Yallock Pinot Noir, for instance, at $85.

Aria is definitely still one of Sydney's big (and most expensive) nights out. It's not the most original, or the most modern, but it delivers on comfort and class, runs like a military operation, uses a great site with intelligence, and has real staying power.

So see you in 10 years' time for the next review, boys.

tdurack@smh.com.au