Yan Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

(4.5 stars) With the rapid expansion upwards in many Sydney suburbs has come many new places to dine at the bases of these residential towers. In amongst the chains, who decide on location based upon predicted population growth, you’ll find some independent beauties by young restaurateurs, like Yan Restaurant. Yan is nestled deep in the soulless high-rise canyons of Wolli Creek. From the outside it’s a fairly spartan glass box with a long open kitchen and a warm glow emitting from rectangular rice paper lanterns.

It’s furnished with comfortable Scandinavian-style chairs and dark timber tables, though just shy of their second birthday their varnish is already a little the worse for wear. The only decoration are jade green tiles with an interlocking Chinese-inspired pattern, which run along the lengthy stainless steel counter. Against this fairly spartan backdrop and alienating empty streetscape, your attention is directed on the people who inhabit the space. In the kitchen it’s co-owner and chef Raymond Lim, and on the floor it's co-owner Narada Kudinar, who moves through the tight 30-seater space with the confidence of a rock star.

Drawn from a succinct ten bottle wine list, Kudinar delivers our 2017 Shadowfax Chardonnay ($57) at precisely the temperature it should be drunk at (warmer than most restaurants serve Chardonnay). While he stands by the serving temperature, Kudinar acquiesces to the request for an ice bucket with good grace. To my palate, while the wine is served at the right temperature, it needs an ice bucket to stay there in a dining space heated by a kitchen constantly erupting into open flame. Thankfully there are cooling bouts of water fog as the tables around us order dessert – Coconut Ice Cream ($15) – served in a whole young coconut that is big enough to share. Its coconut-on-coconut simplicity allows you to revel in the silky texture only liquid nitrogen can produce against grated coconut, coconut jelly, and chewy scrapings of fresh young coconut flesh stripped from the shell.

As for the rest of the menu, the emphasis is on smoked meats, which should be the centerpiece of your meal. Think of Yan as your Asian-influenced answer to the American smokehouse, where Cantonese and Japanese culinary traditions have been brought to bear upon dishes like Smoked Beef Short Rib ($39) - and damned if short rib isn’t easier to eat with an Asian sensibility! Well-rendered, smoky, charred and tasty, this beef short rib really takes it to the masters over at LP’s Quality Meats. When I mention this Kudinar, he looks almost horrified, saying: “We Love LP’s. We went as a team to LP’s, the best thing was the cheese Kransky.” And just their idols, the Yan team can also make kale taste good.

You'll find the hunks of well-caramelised short rib that are cooked in fragrant mountain pepper, particularly delicious over Olive Rice ($6). This steamed koshihikari rice with Chinese olives is another revelation. “The chef’s grandmother used to make it,” Kudinar explains when I asked how it fitted into Cantonese cooking. Punctuate the richness with a generously proportioned bowl of Pickled Cabbage ($6) and throw in some greens, and you have quite the healthy dinner. We opted for Sauteed Broccolini ($12) with ginger, chilli and a Cantonese sauce, so expertly handled, I even enjoyed eating the crisp stalks.

The combi oven, where Lim does his smoking using trays of charcoal, can also produce trays of freshly steamed bao. Up your calcium intake by consuming them with whole Crispy Prawns ($24) eaten head, shell and all inside the fluffy white pillows. Dragged through a fruity, house-made chilli sauce they’re fun, hawker-food inspired bites.

With interiors that are equally soft, five crisp Fried Tofu ($11) squares topped with modern Sichuan peanut chilli sauce are another tasty way to pad out your meal so it lasts as long as your bottle of wine. While neither entrée nor dessert is to be sneezed at, I’m inclined to treat Yan as a modern day BBQ King for a one-course smoked meat feast whenever I get the urge...

First time dining here and it was for a friend’s birthday! The 4 of us spent a total of $252 (includes 5 non-alcoholic beverages) and these were our thoughts on the food 👇

⭐️ = highlight

Snapper Ceviche $24 ⭐️ Tangy, fresh, light, all tied together with a light smokiness from the pineapple. Amazing way to start off our night.

Sautéed Prawns $24 ⭐️ Tasted better than they look 😂 prawns were cooked perfectly and had a nice bite to it. Not sure what they put in their “house made chilli sauce” but it tasted like crack. I’d liken it to a shrimp sambal paste. Salty, spicy, stanky 🤤

Smoked Beef Short Rib $45 ⭐️ Our preferred meat dish of the night. Beautifully cooked, juicy and tender. The sauce sitting at the bottom of the dish was just 😮‍💨 I really enjoyed running the kale through it. No complaints from any of us.

Coconut Ice Cream $25 ⭐️ I saw people just come in and order this, and I can see why. It’s really refreshing and not too sweet, making it the ideal summer dessert.

Sides were nice but nothing special. Olive rice was really fragrant and cooked perfectly. We were just expecting a stronger olive taste. I personally liked the potato dish 🤷🏻‍♀️ Broccolini and baos are as you’d imagine - could’ve definitely gone without the baos.

Lamb was tender, smoky, and skin was perfectly crispy - just liked the beef more. The eggplant was so good, only complaint was that there wasn’t enough of it.

Tiramisu was too bitter for our liking. Donuts were warm and tasty af but nothing unique so not marking it as a highlight 🤣

THE OTHER STUFF: 〰️ Definitely recommend booking. Inside seating is nice if you like open kitchens BUT if you book into their 1st seating time, there is a time limit. Outside seating is not so vibey but you can take your time. 〰️ Time between dishes was quite long. Great if you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, not so great if you’re hangry. 〰️ Would come back to try a new...

Came by after making a booking. (Keep in mind long drive but thought food seemed worth it). Cone in and let them know we made a booking and the girl at the front said the person who took our booking made a mistake and that our booking cant be fullfilled due to no seats available (we even said we will be more then happy to sit outside if theres no seats inside). We told her you made the error or your staff did even and they said they tried contacting us even though we have 0 calls made to our phone. (Again we told our phone number multiple times over the phone as the lady was struggling to understand so it makes sense that she’s going to make a mistake taking our booking). The girl at front said we could sit inside but only for hour and we said thats fine ( she literally made us feel like they were going to force us out if we stayed any longer than exactly an hour). Sat down and as we started looking at the menu, she approached us and suggested that we should order something will come out quick and avoid ordering any big food items that will take 30min to come out. Imagine going to a restaurant and having being told what you cant eat and being forced to swallow your food within a time limit all because we said we being treated very unprofessionally. The girl at the front and person on the phone definitely needs to be retrained. We ended up leaving after she told us to not order certain food due to our “time limit”. Next time i suggest to the staff instead of kicking out the customer you couldn't contact and the customer that came on time….you should just call the booked customer that was meant to come in an hour and reschedule with them for later. (Would of solved literally everything) Disgusting customer service from...