Fredy Lim will move from Sushi E to lead the kitchen at Tenjo, a new 100-seat Japanese rooftop restaurant from the team behind The Apollo, Cho Cho San and Olympus, opening in Redfern this November.

Fredy Lim has been named head chef of Tenjo, a new 100-seat Japanese restaurant opening on the rooftop of The EVE Hotel in Redfern this November.

Currently head chef at Sushi E, Fredy will join Jonathan Barthelmess and Sam Christie’s Apollo Group for the new project, taking over the former Lottie space at 8 Baptist Street.

The menu will be grounded in traditional Japanese cooking, moving across zensai, sashimi, nigiri and maki, tempura, grilled seafood and vegetables, yakitori and donabe rice cooked to order.

For Fredy, it creates a broader kitchen brief, with sushi sitting alongside several distinct cooking techniques rather than carrying the restaurant on its own.

A wider Japanese kitchen

Jonathan and Sam opened The Apollo in Potts Point in 2012 and have since built a Sydney portfolio that includes Cho Cho San and Olympus.

Japanese cooking is already a significant part of that history. Cho Cho San has been operating in Potts Point for 12 years, but Tenjo is designed to work differently.

“We wanted to create the kind of Japanese restaurant where you can eat in lots of different ways,” Jonathan said of the new venue.

Guests will be able to sit at the counter for sushi and sashimi, order tempura or yakitori from the grill, or build a longer meal around claypot rice. Sushi will be prepared in view of diners, while the grill will work across chicken, seafood, vegetables and seasonal produce.

For the kitchen, that means bringing several sections together without losing the precision required by each one.

At Tenjo, sushi is not simply being added to a broad restaurant menu. It is one part of a Japanese kitchen moving between raw seafood, frying, charcoal cooking and rice prepared individually to order.

Putting donabe rice at the centre

The donabe gohan is one of the more interesting parts of the opening from a chef perspective.

Jonathan picked up the idea during a trip to Japan, where he was served the first rice of the season cooked in claypot. At Tenjo, Japanese rice will be selected seasonally for its flavour, aroma and texture before being washed and cooked to order in individual donabe.

The rice will arrive at the table in the pot with combinations including chicken, Wagyu, crab or fish.

It sounds simple, but putting individually cooked claypots through a 100-seat restaurant creates its own demands. Cooking and resting need to be timed around the table rather than preparing one large batch of rice before service.

The kitchen has also found a use for anything guests do not finish. Remaining rice will be pressed into onigiri for diners to take home.

That detail reinforces the role rice will play at Tenjo. It is not simply there to accompany the rest of the menu. It is being treated as a dish in its own right.

A new brief for Fredy

Tenjo gives him a 100-seat kitchen covering several distinct areas of Japanese cooking, with the restaurant intended to work equally well for counter dining, a few skewers and drinks, or a longer meal built around the broader menu.

That breadth changes the demands on the kitchen.

The challenge is not only executing good sushi, tempura or yakitori individually. It is building a service where dishes coming from different sections reach the table with the same consistency.

The donabe program adds another layer, particularly when each claypot is being cooked to order.

For professional chefs, that makes Fredy’s move more interesting than another restaurant-opening announcement.

Tenjo brings together a chef coming from one of Sydney’s established Japanese restaurants, a hospitality group with more than a decade of experience through Cho Cho San, and a menu asking several traditional Japanese techniques to work side by side.

How Fredy brings those elements together will become clearer when the first services begin in November.