After more than 20 years on Kent Street, award-winning Japanese restaurant Tetsuya’s has announced it will close its doors next year, due to the redevelopment of its current location.
But it’s not the end of the beloved eatery, according to owner-chef Tetsuya Wakuda. “The journey is simply evolving,” he says. “We have an incredible team at Tetsuya’s, and while all of us will fondly miss Kent Street, we are all looking forward to a new home.”
A pillar of the culinary community, Wakuda was awarded an Order of Australia in 2005 for outstanding service to the Australian community. In 2016, Wakuda was honoured by the Japanese government becoming the first internationally based Japanese chef to be recognised as a Master of Cuisine.
Originally from Hammatsu, a small town in Japan, Wakuda arrived in Sydney in 1982 at the age of 22 with very limited English. It was in Sydney, working under decorated chef Tony Bilson at Kinselas, that he first learned to combine French technique with Japanese flavour philosophy. Though it wouldn’t be until 1989 that Wakuda opened Tetsuya’s, then crowded into a small terrace house in Sydney’s Rozelle, before relocating to Kent Street in 2000.
