Potts Point favourite Fei Jai takes new-wave Cantonese cooking to Rose Bay

Rose Bay will get its first taste on Friday, February 16, of a crab omelette so good it once pushed a critic to the edge of poetry, thanks to Fei Jai, which might just be the pin-up for new-wave suburban Chinese restaurants.

When restaurateurs Peter Lew and Nicole Galloway launched the original Fei Jai in 2010, the couple were residents of Potts Point, where the restaurant opened. They waited 14 years for the sequel. Three kids later, they now live in the suburb they’ve judiciously sized up for their follow-up eatery.

“During COVID, when people couldn’t travel and we started home delivery, we realised how many customers we had in Rose Bay, Bellevue Hill and Vaucluse,” Lew says.

“We know Rose Bay well, it has a good community feel,” he says of their decision to open on Plumer Road.

The 40-seater, next door to Bitton Rose Bay, had another attraction. Located off a main road made takeaway pick-up an easier option for customers. “Chinese is still really popular [for] takeaway. You can cook it at home, but it’s difficult to replicate those restaurant flavours. It travels well and is great comfort food.”

Veteran chef Yanto Bong will stick with Fei Jai’s signature mix of Cantonese cuisine and quality ingredients that made the mothership sing and a Good Food critic at the time of its 2010 opening gush over its crab omelette.

“Next comes a dish of clouds. I’m not being poetic; I seriously think the egg white omelette with crab might be made of actual clouds, rather than just egg white, cream and generous pieces of blue swimmer crab,” he wrote.

Fei Jai also promises an amped-up dumpling line-up and weekend yum cha.

The restaurant has a good food pedigree. Lew’s uncle opened Flower Drum in Melbourne and Galloway polished her CV at Tetsuya’s and Hugo’s before joining forces with Lew.

“Nicole is really the driving force behind the business,” Lew says.

He jokes they’ve got a bit on their plate, especially with the birth of their third child Louie in January.

A chartered accountant who once worked in fashion and nightclubs before moving into the restaurant business, Lew says his parents tried to steer him away from the industry. And what about Louie Lew’s professional future?

“He can forge his own way, but we’d love him and his brothers to be involved if they want to,” Lew says.

Dinner daily

21 Plumer Road, Rose Bay, feijai.com, 02 7901 9859