KOI Dessert Bar

Overview

Popular Sydney hospitality figure Reynold Poernomo has unveiled his flagship venue in Chippendale, with the opening of a new KOI Dessert Bar featuring three distinct areas. KOI has moved to Central Park Avenue after half a decade in Kensington Street, expanding to a larger more extravagant space two streets over which Poernomo has described as his "dream venue".

Reynold initially opened the dessert bar with the help of his brothers Arnold and Ronald after winning fans over on MasterChef. "This is big for me, the team and the family, because as you all know, this is the first restaurant that my family and I had started over five years ago," Poernomo said.

Tucked behind Central Park Mall next to the Chippendale Green, KOI Dessert Bar now invites sweet tooths to their choice of three dining experiences. The first section is your standard dessert bar reminiscent of the original Chippendale location. Here you'll find a stone and japanese tile benchtop presenting KOI's signature range of desserts for takeaway or eat-in. The daily cake selection changes, but you can expect creations like black truffle basque cheesecake or matcha, yuzu and pistachio slice, paired with St Dreux coffee and Tavalon tea.

In the evening you'll enter through the second space — the revamped Monkey's Corner cocktail bar which has also moved across from Kensington Street. At the bar, the cakes are traded for noodles and coffee swapped for sake. Highlights from the food menu include chilli crab egg noodles ($26), trout tartare ($9), barbecue squid ($18) and fried potato with leek cream sauce ($15). There's also an affinity for truffle, with a black truffle and mushroom noodle dish ($32) a mainstay of the bar, and a seasonal truffle menu on offer during winter.

The final — and possibly most exciting  — element of the revamped venue is an intimate 12-seat restaurant. A chef's table of sorts, diners at KOI Experiential will have a front-row show as Poernomo creates a ten-course degustation spanning the sweet and the savory. The experience resembles that of Sydney's new wave of omakase restaurants, with the head chef taking patrons through that night's intricate and expertly crafted dishes. Seatings at the degustation are available at either 5.30pm or 8pm and will set you back $130pp.

Appears in:

The Best Japanese Restaurants in Sydney