The showstopper at newly opened Korean fine diner Allta also happens to be the first of the night. The name “tuna bite” belies its complexity. Tartare is layered with grilled vegetables and topped with fine threads of crispy leek, served in a ruffled, squid-ink-dyed cracker reminiscent of a patty pan. It’s crunchy, delicate, savoury, perfect. The dish is my favourite, and it’s executive chef Jung-su Chang’s too.

“There are so many flavours and textures; it took me a long time to create,” Chang tells Broadsheet after the meal, via a translator. Allta opened in July, the finer, degustation-only counterpart to Chang’s neon-lit diner Funda. “I changed the recipe five times. There isn’t another dish on the menu that has gone through so many iterations.”

But I wonder, why start on such a high note? With 14 courses to follow, doesn’t it make sense to create a crescendo? Chang doesn’t think so. “I needed to satisfy with the first dish and set the guest’s expectations.”

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He sets a high bar, but Chang and his Michelin pedigree are up for the challenge. In 2023, the French-trained chef left Seoul’s two-Michelin-star restaurant Jungsik to cook in Sydney. Funda’s genre-bending menu is one of the best I tasted last year, and Allta’s 15-dish degustation is proving to be a worthy sibling.

Before we met the tuna, my friend and I sit down at the U-shaped marble countertop extending the length of the restaurant and curving into the kitchen. Details are everything, right down to the menus with our names printed on the front. Led by John Kuek, the affable front-of-house team is at hand pouring the matched tea service, while Chang and his chefs perform in the open kitchen. They work in near silence with incredible precision, droppers and tweezers in hand, making seemingly impossible manipulations to their ingredients. One dish, the naeng-cha cold salad, consists of a bundle of fine vegetable sticks artfully knotted with a thread made of egg yolk.

Chang’s intention is to challenge Australians’ perception of Korean food. “I don’t want people to come with any prejudice as to whether this is traditional or not. Allta is a new concept and a new beginning,” he says. The menu might not be traditional, but there are nods to classic dishes.

Mool hwe is made with New Zealand snapper, soy-poached eggplant and a punchy, smoky, cold mackerel broth. Gukbab riffs on a traditional soup with rice. The broth is rich and opaque, poured over a rice cake topped with slices of beef and oyster mushrooms.

Chang’s French training shows in the caramelised butter sauce poured around tender Wagyu, or the calamari with beurre blanc that’s so delicious I spoon it out of my dish like soup.

At $325 a head, I was half-expecting a serious – maybe stuffy – experience, but it was a seamless blend of good service and friendly chit chat. As Kuek explains how they dialled down the spiciness of the chilli powder on the toothfish to suit an Australian palate, chargers are wiped and cutlery changed. Before the beef is served, guests choose their wood-handled steak knives from a box of six.

Chang hasn’t been in Sydney long, and already he’s achieved an enviable level of success. He’s humble when I ask about it, saying there’s always room for learning and improvement.

“I think there’s still a lot of work to do for Korean food to reach the level of other cuisines in Sydney,” he says. “Korean barbeque is the stereotype; it will take time to break that and show the range that Korean food has to offer.”

Allta
50 Pitt Street, Sydney

Hours:
Tue to Sat 6pm–10pm
One sitting at 6pm each night

alltasydney.com.au
@alltasydney