So my whole life I'd just eaten fish that we caught unless we were eating in a, in a
restaurant. So, so that was a really amazing grounding for me. And then I did a couple
of other things, but in 1982, I just decided that I wanted to cook. And it was a bit serendipitous.
I, I was working at where Catalina is now, but it was sales. Yeah, it was sales at Rose
Bay. And I was.
Sorry, that's not where, they just have like a ferry thing.
Yeah, there was a, well,
there was a ferry thing.
Yeah, there was a ferry exactly where it was, but, but it essentially was exactly the same
as it is now that they kind of flipped the restaurant from memory. The kitchen was where
it is, but you used to enter from the back end.
Yeah, I sort of remember going there.
Yeah. So it was always busy and really, you know, just a crazy act of fate. So, so the
chef actually used to love skydiving and he missed a landing, put his back out and he
was, it was a Sunday lunch and he was actually out for two weeks.
So I actually, I used to expedite the pass on the other side when it was really busy
anyway, but I actually jumped in and ran the dockets from the kitchen side and grilled
some fish. It was pretty simple stuff and wasn't, you know, rocket science. And I just
actually loved it. I just really, really loved it and realized, you know, I've been cooking
crazy dinner parties my whole life and dad had taught me so much about food that I didn't
realize at the time. But when I wrote my first cookbook, I thought long and hard about why
I ended up in the position that I ended up in and why I probably didn't know what I was
going to do next. And so, you know, it was really, you know, it was really, you know,
it was really all about him. You know, he was a gardener, he was a fisherman, he was
a butcher. I mean, we had the best of everything. We ate with the seasons, we grew our own food.
Eggs came from chickens we had in the aviary. You know, it was really, it was really an
incredible upbringing for somebody who wanted to be a chef. So I then spent 82. So we're
talking about fairly, you know, a fairly long time ago, but I worked for anywhere between
six weeks and three weeks of the, three months with a whole lot of great chefs. Damien Pignolet
at the time, he introduced me to Stephanie Alexander. I moved to Melbourne for three
months, came and worked for Gabe Ilson at Brow Waters when Tony came to open Kinsella's
and she had Brow for the first time all by herself. And then before Yarny had started
and then I went to work for Jenny Ferguson at You and Me, met Stefano Manfredi there,
which was fantastic. That sort of kicked off a lifelong friendship. And then I worked at
Tony Pappas when we first opened the Bayswater Brasserie, which was insane. You know, 350
covers.
Turned up the first night and no one really knew what they were doing. I think Tony and
I were the only ones in the kitchen and a couple of others knew what cooking was. And
I'd only been cooking for like nine months or whatever. And then I, an old girlfriend
of mine was working with Judy McMahon at Simpsons in the city, which is sort of off, I think
it was off Ash Lane actually, sort of where Justin is now. And she said that they'd bought
Baron Joey House and they were looking for a chef. And I was crazy enough to think,
that I might be able to do this, which was ridiculous of me because I'd only been cooking
for about nine months. And so I went and I sat on the lawn with McMahon and we drank
a bottle of wine together and, you know, I rode up on my bike. I'm not sure I should
have ridden home. Beautiful day in Palm Beach. They had an apartment that was looking down
over the water. And I think he must have just looked at all the places that I'd worked,
which were great places. Didn't think about how long I'd been there and the fact that
I'd only been cooking for less than a year or a year.
And so he gave me the job as head chef. I started in November 82. Leo Schofield came
up in 83 and rode up.
As the food critic?
As the food critic.
The food critic.
And made-
Probably still is.
It moved, you know, moved mountains when he did a ride up. And so he came to Palm Beach.
He stayed at Baron Joey and he went to Pete Doyle's Reflections, which was just down the
road. And he ate at Baron Joey House and he gave me, you know, 17 out of 22.
Kids the Star was the headline. And, you know, I just never looked back from there.
When you, you just sort of covered a number of years.
Yeah.
But you also covered a number, like just about every big name in the, let's call it the restaurant
business at the time.
At the time, yeah.
At the time. And, you know, some of those people are sort of fairly iconic.
Yeah.
At least in my mind, because I remember, I don't know most of them, but I definitely
know most of their restaurants. And they were all very famous.
And then you picked Leo Schofield, who, as far as I'm concerned, is one of Australia's
greatest athletes. Like, in other words, knowledge about what is beautiful, whether it's food
or architecture or music, et cetera.
And he's still alive too.
And he is, he is.
He's just down the road.
We're hoping that he'll get to the Good Food Guide, which is next week, for the 40th anniversary.
And so I was in the first guide.
I was in the first guide with Baron Joey House and still going.
I think I'm the only one.
So, but how is it that Neil Perry, a kid from Ewington, year 10, left school because his
hair was too long and didn't want to be told what to do.
Kid from Dromoyne.
Dromoyne then wasn't what it is now.
Yeah.
You know, Dromoyne's a fairly fancy joint now.
Dromoyne then was in a West suburb.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it wasn't, you know, wasn't where it is now, put it that way.
How do you think you got to meet all these people?
Was it your knowledge?
Was it naivety and therefore application for anything at all?
No, look, it was really through food.
And I guess I knew all of these guys because when I was at sales, I was earning really
good money.
I was running the restaurant, you know, it was eight francs to the dollar back then with
no tax on imported booze.
So we were drinking, you know, like the stuff that we drink now, like Romney Conti, you
know, and Dom and Lafitte.
And we were drinking, you know, amazing Saturns, Ikem and so forth because they were just as
cheap as Australian wines.
Back in those days.
And now you can't afford to buy a bottle.
I mean, a bottle of Burgundy is just insane now.
So, you know, I knew a lot about wine.
I learned a lot about wine.
And I knew these guys.
I used to eat at Court.
How do you get to meet them?
Well, because, you know, you're drinking well and you're eating well and you're in their
restaurant and you're in the business and they come up and talk to you.
And so you start chatting.
And so we became friends.
But how do you put yourself in a company, mate?
Because like someone else might be saying, look, I've been trying to get in so-and-so's
company or I've been trying to get in Neil Perry's company for a long time, but I can't.
He won't give me a look.
Because, you know, you're busy, whatever.
Or was it just a different time?
I think it was very much a different time.
So I was so lucky.
Everything was so concentrated.
I mean, you talk about Leo before.
He gave you a review.
It had filled the restaurant for a year.
Now you get a review in one of the major papers and really the phone might ring for a week.
Because the information is so disparate now about, you know, how people gather their news
or not news.
I mean, just as many people are just looking at Instagram.
All the kids that work for me, all the young ones.
You know, I'll say.
Oh, we've got a great review in the Good Food Guide.
They probably don't even know what that means.
Well, they don't buy the paper.
No, they don't even know what the paper is.
And so the reality of it is back in those days, I wouldn't like to be starting now trying
to make a name for myself.
You know, there were half a dozen really good restaurants in Sydney and there was a very
small pool of people that used to eat at them and you knew the chefs.
So that's what it was like.
And so growing up through the 80s and 90s and, you know, working with other iconic chefs
like Tetsuya.
And myself and Stefano Manfredi and Chrissie Manfield and David Thompson and Ditmar Sawyer.
You know, we were kind of like the forefront of everything that's come after and then,
you know, been joined by guys like, you know, Matt Moran and so forth.
Like Matt's a decade younger than me.
But, you know, those kind of guys have done well now.
Peter Gilmore, of course, you know, sort of kind of legendary status in key restaurant
and so forth.
But I think for me, starting at that time was definitely an advantage.
I wouldn't be able to do what I did then, now, for sure.
And it's funny, Neil Perry is a brand in itself, you know, which you've been clever enough
to leverage in all sorts of ways.
It seems to me at some stage in your life, outside of cooking, and I don't mean that
in a deferential sense, like, I mean, chef or cookie, I mean, you're brilliant at it.
But outside of that, it seems to me that you spent some...
I mean, did you have a level of energy building the Neil Perry brand, or either consciously
or unconsciously, or did it just emerge?
No, no, I mean, I think, you know, the reality of a brand is it's sort of a promise, right?
You know, so people talk about an image or whatever it might be, or the graphic of a
brand.
It's really the emotion that it actually brings up when you see that.
And I think for people when they see me, because I've been associated with great restaurants,
you know, Rockpool, Blue Water Grill originally, and Rockpool, and Rockpool Bar and Grill,
and now Margaret.
You know, we...
We've always strived to be the best we possibly can be every day.
We, you know, always had a great philosophy to work with the guys, you know, right from
the beginning, I talked to them about the fact that, sure, we're in the restaurant business,
but the reality of what we do is create great memories.
So we're in the memory business.
So if we don't, you know, we can create a bad memory, a lukewarm one, or a great memory.
So, you know, I talk to them about, you know, hospitality, generosity, the care philosophy,
which is how we run our business, it's very simple.
But all of that is really about creating this amazing memory so that people talk about the
restaurant, the strength of the brand, like editorial and word of mouth is much stronger
than any kind of advertising you can ever do.
And we're in a business that people like to talk about it.
It's a, you know, it's very much part of the community, dining, eating, socializing.
You know, we're very lucky.
That's part of the human condition, right?
So we're very heavily involved in that.
And it's why I suppose chefs and restauranteurs have been put on this pedestal because people
enjoy and love to be, you know, entertained.
We're in the entertainment business, but they love to have these great memories that they
can think about.
I mean, if you, like on any one day when we come to work, we're kind of very responsible
for things.
Like we've got an 80th birthday and you don't want Aunty Jan's 80th birthday to be completely
stuffed up for the entire family.
Right.
We've got a wedding celebration, we've got an anniversary, we've got a, you know, people
have come in and done wakes at the restaurant, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Melbourne, you've
got all of these celebrations that are very important to people.
And if you stuff it up, I mean, you know, they've got a bad memory of someone's birthday
or anniversary or whatever it might be.
So there's an amazing responsibility there.
And you've really got to make sure that every day you're on form.
So because I really early on just decided I wanted to be the best at what I was doing
and I wanted to try and bring really good people through with me, that people have kind
of resonated with that.
And, you know, my style is very different to a lot of other, you know, I wouldn't call
what I do now fine dining.
It's just, you know, great eating.
But, you know, through the rock pool days, yes, I was pushing the envelope and whatever.
But for me, you know, now it's really just about doing the best.
That we possibly can talking to our fishermen, talking to our beef growers, making sure that
the best produce comes in to the to the restaurant, making sure that our egos get right out of
the way and that people taste the nature in the produce that we've actually, you know,
spent years sourcing, building relationships.
You know, people say, oh, that's just a steak on a plate.
Well, it's not really.
It's like a conversation I had four years ago when, you know, the calf was born.
It's the conversation I'm having on Monday when my guys are out fishing and catching
King George White.
And, you know, whether it be flathead and garfish and, you know, whether it be coral
trout or amazing bass group or Jewfish out of the West, you know, all of these, all these
conversations are more important than, you know, tweezers and flowers and all the stuff
that people nowadays put on food.
That's very interesting.
And they don't think about where did the food come from.
They just think about how pretty it looks.
And that's not the right.
Is that your revolution?
Is that an evolution of Neil Perry today?
Or were you always like that?
I've always been like that.
Even since Baron Joey days.
I mean, I was just lucky.
Um, some guys came up to the back door, you know, a week after we'd open and said, we
go out fishing, I've got a 15 kilo Jewfish, you know, I've got, I've got school prawns.
I've got, you know.
You're talking about DHA Jewfish or?
No, no, Jewfish, which we, which we, which now we call Mulloway.
Yeah, yeah.
Mulloway.
Um, and so.
Great fish, I love it.
Oh, beautiful fish.
And we get those big fish coming into, into the Hawkesbury out from sea, um, you know,
15 kilos, 20 kilos, massive Jewfish steak.
I mean, they, they, when the, when the parbo prawn season was on, we'd be
getting the schoolies out of, out of Hawkesbury.
You know, there, there was just the amazing, uh, amount of fish and there used to be quite
a, a good fish shop right next to us at Baron Joey.
And then, you know, we'd feed off those guys coming and bringing stuff in from there.
And then I'd drive to the fish market twice a week.
So seafood was really important to us then.
And that, that's when I started putting, uh, our, you know, supplies, if a fish was
delivered by a fisherman, his name went on the menu.
And so I pursued that ever since.
And so it was the same at the Blue Water Grill.
On the back of the menu, we'd write the suppliers.
At the front page at Rockpool, we'd write the suppliers, Bar and Grill.
Uh, we named them all.
At Margaret, I actually, because the relationships have been going for so
long, 20 years plus, we actually call most of our suppliers by their first name.
Um, so it's Pav and Heidi's, Big Eye Tuna, it's Bruce's King George Whiting,
um, because we just have this incredible relationship with these guys that make us,
they make us, you know, we don't make them.
And that's a really important thing to.
To, to focus on.
And for me, that started with my father because we were digging things out of the
garden, picking things out of the garden in season, you know, we were picking eggs out
of the bums, you know, off the chickens as they were trying to, you know, hatch them
or running around the yard.
We were, you know, he was killing the odd one and we were eating it and we were eating
fresh fish, uh, that he'd catch and he'd bring amazing meat home.
And we'd have, you know, large format cuts of meat cooked on the barbecue and
slaughtered.
And all this stuff, and I had lots of great Chinese friends at that stage that we'd get
invited to their houses and eat amazing food or we'd get invited to their wedding or, you
know, their, their Chinese new year celebration.
And so I, I didn't even realize it, but I was kind of getting a snapshot of food that
Australians weren't really getting at that time.
My father ran a lot, really large abattoir, um, and meat processing, um, space.
And so the boners and the butchers were like Italians, Hungarians.
Um, Greeks, you know, so when I go and help them school holidays and go and push meat
and, you know, do things.
And when I got older, I was sort of delivering meat in school holidays.
And, but, you know, they'd sit down and breakfast would be, you know, sandwich with salami and
pickled eggplant, you know, I was eating all this stuff and kind of just thinking that
was normal.
But as I got older, I kind of realized that that wasn't, uh.
Definitely not normal.
No, definitely not normal.
My dad was a butcher.
So, you know, Sunday breakfast would be crumbed lamb's brains on toast or, or, you know, you
know, veal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or veal kidneys or lamb's kidneys or lamb's fry and bacon and tomato and tripe.
And, you know, so we used to eat, we had everything.
Um, and so, yeah, it wasn't until kids would come over and have a sleepover and we'd be,
you know, doing some lamb's fry and bacon.
They'd be going, Oh, what's this?
What's this?
But, you know, it was a really rich food background and dad loved food and loved cooking.
So we'd always say, taste this, you know, taste this.
What do you remember?
What are you thinking about?
So he actually created who I am today without me.
Even realizing I got to start in my apprenticeship when I was, um, you know, 18 months old or
the first time I started having solids because, you know, dad was cooking up fresh vegetables
for me and, uh, eating crumb, fresh fish.
And, you know, so where, wherever I started from was a really beautiful place of, you
know, fresh seasonal ingredients.
And I think, don't think people were really experiencing that, um, normally, maybe if
they lived in the country, but certainly not in the city.
Is your dad still alive?
No, he passed away.
I mean, Josephine was born 30 years ago, sadly.
30 years ago.
Well, he'd be very proud of where you are.
Actually, funny you should say that because when I, when you were talking to me, I was
just trying to remember where I first went to one of your restaurants and I remember
it was down at the Rocks and it was, um, uh, what was the name of the restaurant?
Rockpool.
It was the original Rockpool.
Rockpool, yeah.
And I went there with, uh, two old mates of mine and, uh, you probably remember Zara
Elizov.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who's now passed away.
And Bill Shipton.
Yeah.
Who's recently passed away.
Yeah.
Well, we're losing everyone.
Yeah.
And, um, they're in their eighties.
And, um, and, uh, I'd never been exposed to this type of food, um, in terms of quality
price for me at the time.
Um, and, uh, but just, uh, like, uh, uh, complexity for me, uh, what, what looked like a complexity
for me in terms of sauces and things like that.
And then I remember seeing you on TV and I don't remember what show you were doing, but
I saw you on TV sort of cooking and demonstrating cooking and stuff like that.
But one of the things I learned, one of the things, and I've learned lots of things from
going to your restaurants.
Of course, I went to the Rockpool restaurant in the city.
Which is very close to my house.
Um, and I spent many, in fact, I probably, I, at one stage there, I was having my dinner
or lunch there at least three, four times a week.
Yeah.
That was, that was where I went and got a decent meal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I got to learn a lot of things about what was on your menu.
So my first introduction to the place called Cape Grim in Australia, which is the bottom
of Tasmania, which, um, is where you get, you were getting your steaks from.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Grass fed beef.
Grass fed.
Grass fed.
And then I started learning about grass fed as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It wasn't a thing for me.
Um, but I, I, you know, like I normally would do this.
I went and researched Cape Grim and I found out that the, the, uh, water that falls from
the sky in Cape Grim is the cleanest water in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but measured, measured, actually measured by the CSIRO.
And they actually bottle water there.
Correct.
I don't know if you've ever had the Cape Grim rainwater.
I have.
And the people who bottle the water come and saw me.
Yeah.
And asked me to invest in the business.
Yeah.
Which, I mean, I didn't, the only reason I did invest in them because at that stage
they had bottle, the water was in plastic bottles.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But they actually went to glass bottles and they ended up being on one of the airlines
I come from.
Yeah.
I think we flew them for a little while.
For Qantas, yeah.
Um, and I don't know whatever happened to them, but I was quite impressed the fact that
I thought, and I actually worked at, uh, when I went down and saw it, I saw how the water
was collected, um, from the rain, et cetera.
And, and then it was filtered, et cetera, through, um, light filtration.
But then I thought to myself, well, if the cows are eating the grass that this water
is watering.
Oh, but it's, it's pristine place.
They've got to be, they've got to be fantastic.
And I then started buying Cape Grim.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know that Harris Farms sells Cape Grim and, uh.
They do now.
Yeah.
They do now.
Yeah.
You can get Cape Grim.
Yeah.
I think, uh, there's a few butchers around now and there's more, more and more, um, the,
you know, they're, they're, they're a big producer, um, now because they've, they've,
they've bought a few farms into the co-op.
Yeah.
It's like a co-op.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where, where the, and, and, and the, and to be Cape Grim, they need to be, you know,
36 months, a fully mature cow, older, better flavor profile.
So one of the reasons why.
I, I did that.
So to get back to the reason why I ended up with a restaurant called Rockpool and then
one called Rockpool Bar and Grill, um, John Alexander and James Packer, when they decided
to redo the casino up just after James and Kerry had bought it down in Melbourne, but
you know, John had, and John's one of them.
J.A. was with the.
Well, J.A. was really the, one of the most instrumental.
You talk about Leo, J.A. started the Good Food Guide and, and started Leo at Fairfax.
Yeah.
And then when he went and ran ACP.
Magazines, he started the restaurant, um, awards and, and restaurant of the year for,
for, um, gourmet.
So that became massive under his watch.
So twice he's really created the two definitive, you know, restaurant guides in Australia.
Another, another aesthetically perfection seeking person in everything, art, whatever
it is.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so they got me down there and there were a number of restaurants that they showed me
and, and then John, John, a number of spaces, I should say, because there were spaces being
converted.
There were existing restaurants.
Uh, and we went to Ciccone's, which was a beautiful restaurant.
Um, we, and we sat there, had, had dinner.
I remember we, John ordered a bottle of Tignanello, which is one of my favorite Italian reds.
So we, we drank that.
I just loved the space.
I got in the elevator with him, you know, press the buttons going up.
And I said, man, if you give me that space, I'll come down tomorrow.
And, uh, he said to me, well, that's not really one of the spaces.
Cause I was very happy.
It was Lloyd's favorite restaurant, which is another thing.
Lloyd, we're talking about Lloyd Williams.
Lloyd Williams and Lloyd was a great, you know, James is a mentor.
And, um, so yeah.
And so, um, so anyway, I got a call three days later, said it's yours if you want it.
So that started the whole idea.
And then as we, we, as we got closer, so it's a big space, right?
So Rockpool's a hundred seat restaurant and fine dining, and that's pushing the envelope
for size for fine dining.
And, and this is like a 240 seat restaurant.
And so he said to me, look, you know, we're really investing in the name Rockpool because
we were in the top 50.
We were in the top 50 restaurants in the world at that stage, we'd finished second, um, fourth
and eighth and 16th in the first three years, just before we, we opened, um, in Melbourne.
He said, you can do anything you like with it, but it's got to have the name Rockpool
because that's the brand we're investing in.
So straight away, my thought went to, I've always wanted to open a steakhouse because
my dad was a butcher.
Meat's always been incredibly important to me.
And the only reason Rockpool ended up a seafood restaurant is when I opened it,
at 89, I couldn't get the quality of beef consistently.
I wanted to, by the time, fast forward to 2005, 2006, and, and you know, you've, there's
different, there's David Blackmore, there's Kate Grimm.
Um, and I, I wanted to, I tasted older beef in, in Europe, old dairy cows.
I came back with that in mind when I found Kate Grimm.
So Rockpool Bar and Grill was born, steak restaurant.
I've always loved great seafood.
So I bought my fish supplies down with me.
So I think I created one of the great.
Modern steakhouses in the world because none of it had the best beef dry aged and
butchered on the premises, but I also had amazing fish coming in, you know, dry
filleted, straight on the grill.
And, uh, it became very, you know, it became a Melbourne institution
within three months of opening.
It was quite.
I didn't realize that before the Sydney one.
Yeah.
Then the Sydney one opened a bit later.
Okay.
Okay.
I didn't realize it.
And that was all part of the casino.
Well, the Melbourne casino.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then we ended up with, with Spice Temple down.
There and as well, and Rosetta and Rosetta, which unfortunately recently closed, which
was a shame, such a beautiful restaurant.
I did that with John Alexander.
I mean, they, they spent $8 million on it back in 2011.
So I don't think you could get that much marble today.
It was insane.
No way.
No way.
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So you're opening up Rockpool here in Sydney then.
Yeah.
And I always wanted to know how you...
You went about, because obviously you don't cook every steak and every bit of fish.
No.
How you went about setting the menu.
How do you go about setting the menu?
Do you sit down?
Is it a collaborative thing with your staff?
No.
When I start a restaurant, I always write the menu and keep that into pretty tight control.
I will do some collaboration after some period of time when I see the guys and see how they
cook and that they've come into thinking about food the way that I do, because it's about
craft of cooking.
It's about really great seasoning and it's about really looking after the produce and
cooking it beautifully.
The whole restaurant business is a very collaborative business.
It's not about one person.
It's about the collective.
You really aren't as strong as the...
If the kitchen hands fall over and the wet area goes to the shit, then the whole restaurant's
in the shit.
It's basically very simple.
If you've got a great team and the whole team's pulling together, you can create this great
memory for people.
For me, especially having come from front of house for seven years into the back of
house, was always trying to be one team as opposed to us and them.
It was very much a front of house and back of house when I first started in the 80s.
I always tried to change that.
For me, it was getting the best chefs around me, communicating how I felt about food, teaching
them about taste, seasoning, simplicity, teaching them about sourcing produce relationships,
about caring about each other.
The whole staff...
My whole caring philosophy, the core of it really is about caring about each other.
For us, and for my business, what I do and I did it at Rockpool.
We now do it at Margaret, which we call Margaret Family because my wife, Sam, and I own the
business.
We don't really have any other shareholders, which is awesome.
We really want to make the people who work for us better people.
I'm definitely trying to make you a better cook.
I'm definitely going to make you a better sommelier.
I'm trying to make you a better manager or waiter, whatever you're doing.
But I'm trying to make you a better chef.
That's my whole...
I'd really like to make you a better person as well I'd like you to be much more aware about the
environment community politically activated because you know the younger generation are
the ones that hopefully our our generation suck the marrow out of the world so I'm hoping
enough of these young people get invigorated that they can try and change it and take it back so
and I and I try to make them feel like they've got to look after each other and care for each
other and whether that's in a work sense or a personal sense whether that's you know are you
okay or can I help you or so they're the sort of things that I think create a really well-rounded
organization and for me the one thing I'm most proud of probably in the in the um the span of
my career is it's a long one but I've had a lot of people that have stayed with me for a very very
long period of time and I think that comes down to the culture that we create well how would you
describe yourself I mean you know we're we're we're inundated describe yourself in the kitchen
that is or describe yourself in the business but particularly in the kitchen
because we see you know we know Gordon Ramsay like Gordon's oh yeah but that's his tv persona
too no no no that's his shtick right yeah that's he's a really nice guy but how would you correct
so how would you describe yourself yeah in the kitchen environment uh I think my get angry but
no not at all I think my whole approach is kind of one of kind of building people's confidence
rather than knocking them down I'm always talking to my guys about you know in the heat of service
because it's a it's a stressful full-on environment if you just
take your stress and put it onto somebody else you're not diffusing the bomb right it's actually
creating bigger explosion so so you know you really like to start yelling at people in the
middle of service just creates a bottlenecks but to sit down with people after saying you know
that really wasn't good enough you know we're better than that you know that wasn't cooked
properly or the timing wasn't right or you know come on guys you know the order was completely
wrong if you walk up to a waiter in the middle of service start berating him like he's got 10
tables to look after you're not going to be in the right position you're not going to be in the right
mental sort of space so my my philosophy for always is always about talking about things at
the right time um it's much more meaningful you know you know you know really much really walking
towards the tension so if you see that there's a problem you get to it quickly and have a
conversation before it becomes uh you know boils over into into a bigger issue and also I just
always think that if I can only really affect myself and and my mood so when I'm doing these
things in the restaurant you know it's really what can I do well I can control myself I can
take a couple of deep breaths I can go and help that person get under control I can
diffuse this situation but I can't do anything about all the stuff that's happening around me
so I have to stay calm if I get caught up in all the schmuzzle that's happening around then you
know it it doesn't do anything but sort of derail where I'm at so my my kind of philosophy is more
I suppose zen I don't really find I don't really find it
a positive thing to be berating people or bringing people down or belittling people
like some chefs do but you know sometimes that that culture's learned chefs will
live through that and they think that that's the way to behave that all chefs act yeah and it's
not really I mean I came from the front of house so I'm more you know kind of working out sort of
how's the customer feeling how do I look after the customer how do I get my team to come with me
how do I get the best out of the chef so even though most people would say I'm a chef I always
think of myself as a restaurateur
first and foremost and I'm lucky that I can cook and I have a really great passion for food because
that stops any chef or kitchen you know from trying to stand over me or because I'm able to
run all of it so for me I guess I'm in a really unique position that I've kind of learned front
of house and I learned how to be a restaurateur I've got a really I guess a really strong philosophy
on how I get people to come with me and grow grow them and grow with them and then I've got a really
great background in
food and essentially with the restaurant and menus I only cook what I like so so I don't think oh what
you know what would a critic like or what is uh what would these guys like to eat I actually cook
the food that I really love and I've been lucky enough that people love eating it you know because
like people look at my large menu and go what's your favorite dish I go like well everyone's my
favorite dish they wouldn't be on the menu you know I don't put things on a menu that I don't
love to eat and when I eat at my restaurants I eat over the all over the menu all the time
because they're all over the menu and I don't like to eat all over the menu all the time and I don't
like to eat all of those things you know excite me um they're all they're all you know beautiful
produce and taste great and seasoned well you know what when I now that I've been spending a bit more
time with you and uh just outside of restaurants and one of the things that by the way I should
always notice I always notice that you're always on the floor wherever you are you're always to be
seen I can see you all the time I've seen you I'm at the restaurants you are always there you're not
sort of standoffish or sitting up the top somewhere you know watching the cash register or whatever
you're always there but one of my one of my observations about Neil Perry
apart from many thousands of observations about you um is that I would say you're a
nutrition researcher in other words how do I make nutrition tasty researching it like
hit all the things on your tongue all the taste sensors on your tongue but probably
in addition to that I see you as a public educator because you know just thinking to myself um what
you do is you bring to the public through you know things you publish yeah you know through
television or through radio and you know you're a public educator and you're a public educator
or through you know magazines or whatever wherever you want to write over the over a long
period of time um you you you are educating whether it's purposefully or not I don't know
but you are educating us on grass-fed meat best places to source it from you know what a great
fish is what a king george whiting from adelaide wherever I can't remember what they call what
what particular coffin by always like compared to you know other types of voices you're educated
you've been educating us about food and the sources of food particularly here in australia
do you see yourself as a having an obligation to be a public educator uh not an official sense yeah
no but I I it's something I really um enjoy doing but I I very much saw myself as that I mean you
know had the good weekend and good food column for you know best part of 20 years and I think I've
written 12 books or whatever it might be pretty much every single book starts out with you know
the philosophy of good cooking is good shopping so you know that's that I've always talked about
you know the philosophy of good cooking is good shopping so you know that's that I've always talked about
you know the philosophy of good cooking is good shopping so you know that's that I've always talked
about but the reality of is you're better to eat less less of something but better quality than
than a lot of something that's not great so so can I say why is you mean from a from a taste
point of view or from a nutritional point well but from both actually and I think you know one
of the things that we've also worked hard from a educational standpoint is things like waste you
know it's sort of a you know a third of everything that's grown basically gets either plowed back
to the ground or buried in in landfill and you know people fill their fridges up with food that
they don't eat or or need and so you know diligent shopping and knowing what you want and and
investing in high quality means that you are utilizing everything that you have and you're not
wasting and you don't really end up spending much more money but yeah you know you're better off to
eat you know 400 grams or 250 grams of really good meat every week than you are a kilo of you know
and then have a couple of nice pieces of fish and eat vegetables and you know people always say to me
oh you know you you're you're a really great chef but you know how do you how do you stay in shape
and do you work out and as well I don't really but I do about 20,000 steps a day between the
restaurants and the kitchens and whatever but I eat really well you know I drink really well as
well I drink great wine but um but I eat really well you know I eat a lot of vegetables and a lot
of seafood um I'll probably just you know vegetarian style food three four nights a week
as as opposed then that there's no protein no no no protein yeah and then I'll you know eat fish
and I'll eat meat you know once a week maybe but it'll be a beautiful steak um and will you cook
it yourself yeah I'll cook it myself a lot of the time and you know I'll eat at the restaurants uh
and and I have family meal at least three or four nights a week so the great thing about that is
family meals at five um now I get to choose between songbird or or or margaret um depending
on what I feel like and um but but um
what is a family meal family meal is when the entire restaurant sits down front house and
kitchen and even if there's people still in the restaurant dining we just tell them we're having
family meal and that's our break I feed them staff as staff yeah and then and then they get up and
they work you know the night that's their break and their their meal and you know we get bread
out of baker blue and we and and family meals planned we don't it's not leftovers it's a planned
meal we buy produce in and we cook it and but the good thing about that is that I eat that at five
again I mean I'm tasting things and stuff but um you know really I think a really good a good
plan for healthy eating and I when I eat out I eat at six and seven and eight thirty and whatever but
but uh you know if you're if you're eating early and you know you're active because I'm still
working and and you know you're essentially fasting for a good period of time I think that
sort of is a really good healthy lifestyle um and so I've been able to maintain you know working
two lifetimes in one um and and stay
you know healthy and and feeling good and and active I mean you know I don't have much
disc on L5 and I think nothing much on C6 but um you know apart from that you know I've been
really lucky I'm really healthy I feel like active I feel young I've kind of I always say to people
you know they say oh how do you you know keep looking the same and well I kind of I'm like a
vampire I live off the off the um inspiration and energy of all these amazing young people who work
for me and I just think I'm the same age as them and I think I'm the same age as them and I think
I'm the same age as they are you know I never I never kind of think oh you're in your 60s I just
look at them and I think well I'm just one of the pack you know so it's interesting um uh when you
say that um I saw you about uh I don't know I think whenever Songbird just was no it's about
to open yes before Father's Day oh yeah right yeah yeah and uh I think I saw you on like maybe
on the Friday the Saturday and you're opening for Father's Day dinner or lunch I can't remember
what it was yeah it was yeah and um and you look completely fucked oh man I was that was the so
worst time of my life I I want to talk to you about that like and look like you look like you
just come off a rejuvenation program today compared to then yeah um so I know and I guess
you know like everybody thinks uh you know the restaurant business industry and particularly
what you're doing is glamorous and it's you know fancy and you've got great spaces and
the food's all there and it all just sort of happens I walk in I eat the food and you know
beautiful wines the whole but it's just behind the scenes yeah um
maybe we can use Songbird as a proxy as to where it can be really fucking hard yeah yeah um what is
it like to get yourself ready for an opening day let's just take me through it now yeah your and
my good friends the the meleks and the palaces and all those people in the world we love them
oh we love them Dove don't worry we're not gonna we're not gonna pull you back Charles and Patrick
and and and Dan have been fabulous like they're great landlords and we did really awesome stuff
we're in the bakery you know it was really awesome you know a lot of people would say
well the hardest the hardest opening must have been Margaret because the night you're about to
open all the produce is there everything's happening we go into lockdown for four months
the second lockdown the very night we were supposed to open I had to cancel 16 000 bookings
whoa so so like we we 16 000 yeah we knew like we like I two weeks in we knew it was gonna I I
think we won I didn't think we would come out as quickly but obviously um you know Gladys was amazing
getting driving and then Dominic after that the the whole program with with vaccination and so
forth and we were really leading the country but but you know what happened then was incredible
because we basically went into this period of of um neutral and we were doing anything two weeks in
I was like I had a dark week and then I thought hang on you just got to get up and get going this
is like you're all your staff
relying on you so we got hold of everybody we got them back in Provador came to Sydney so we joined
that we started selling burgers and all sorts of sandwiches and stuff at lunchtime because there
are lots of people down walking and and so forth so we'd do 300 burgers in an hour and a half every
day of the week but what that did like for four months we all worked together it was an amazing
team and we did a full week of training before October 13 when we opened again so so that
actually ended up being the best restaurant opening that we've ever
done because we all just knew each other so well because your starting place because because we'd
worked together for four months essentially you know it wasn't a restaurant but we were we were
there we knew each other we were cooking stuff in the kitchen it was awesome uh and then and then
what happened with with um Songbird and Bobby's is essentially the base build ran late and I had to
pick a date and and I sort of put a you know we're going to open the weekend before Father's Day we're
going to have events I've done this about 20 times in my life but but I've never missed it by so far
and so coming in to where the two weeks of events so that's all about cash flow people are paying me
to do events we can do events with our eyes closed I mean I can go into a thousand people in you know
Martin place with with with a set up kitchen there and take some of my team and you know we've done
it so many times all the catering I did at the MCA you know volume doesn't worry me so I knew we
and we're learning about the space and we're working together we did the same thing when we
had Margaret it was fantastic great great great way to when you say learning about space you mean the
rhythm of how the building works yeah the rhythm of how the building works and you're working within
it and you're working with customers but you've got a set menu and you know everything's kind of
controllable yeah because it's because it's sort of like an experiment it's really narrow and you
get after that two weeks you're in really good shape and then you put two or three more days
training into it and then you open and you're you know you're in a good space and everything's done
and you're ready and you're finished well this was just an absolute nightmare because I'm running
into that two weeks we realize that we're not going to be able to get OC the base builders are running
late occupations yeah occupational base builders are running really late they were supposed to
finish in you know March then April then June then the end of June then July then beginning of August
and then they're finishing the same day that we're finishing which is like the 30th of of um of August
and you're trying to open up the fire brigade we've got to come down oh it was a nightmare so
I had to cancel everything there's no training couldn't get into the space we're standing in
Margaret talking to the guys about the food and stuff but that doesn't help them in the
in the space you know we still haven't got the occupational certificate I'm going to
cancel all of these people who are like you know my corporate friends you know Qantas Fortis um IWC
uh uh Comm Bank Comm Bank private all the people that that I were doing these events for and uh
they were all doing the pre-opening and the swelling point for them was that you know you're
going to get to see songbird first so so none of that's happening we can't get in Bobby's having
him set the furniture up we started to set the furniture up it's the songbird we finally get
the occupational certificate after cancelling the lunch bookings 4 30 in the afternoon we don't have
the staircase at all so that's all hoarded off we've got to take people up through the elevators
the dumb waiters are running at 50 of their capacity so like it was the worst two weeks
in I didn't sleep for two weeks then we opened and it was the most
revolting opening I've ever done because of all the we weren't ready I should have just cancelled
everybody but you know what are you going to ring up and say to someone two days out I know you've
got a table for 20 for Father's Day but I'm sure you'll be able to go somewhere else like you know
yeah but did you ring him and say listen we're not ready but no no no you can't do that so so
so anyway we we did that I caught you know we finally got the staircase open two weeks later
so it was the worst two weeks called the dumb waiter people in and just said guys this is just
great for purpose I don't know what you've done blah blah blah they go oh they can go twice as fast
and I'm like well so if I bought a Ferrari you're going to say they're going to put the four cylinder
engine in before I get the 12 just in case I can't handle the speed is that is that what you're
saying oh we didn't think to I'm just like oh my God anyway we know we're serving 200 people so we
get the staircase back everyone's starting to work within the space food's coming out really nicely
um we're into week eight or seven now we've just gone seven nights um and I had dinner there last
night with a great friend of mine Paul Harris actually he's a really great mate of David Co
who was another awesome friend of mine who sadly passed away one of the greatest humans ever lived
unbelievable um you had to live his life too oh man and he lived two lifetimes and well that's
the only reason you can't be sad that he passed away doing what he loved yeah he did so so the
restaurant is flying now it's beautiful um the foods are great can you tell us a little bit about
What's the philosophy behind it?
Well, Saltbird and Bobby's is like a four-level
and how it happened very organically.
And if I knew what it was going to cost me now,
I would never have done it.
Sam and I would have just gone on more holidays.
I've put so much money into that place.
But anyway, we love it.
It's beautiful.
Might get a return on investment one day.
But I really wanted the bar, which used to be the old Pelicanos.
And the guy said one of the partners just didn't want to go somewhere else.
Ched's old.
That's Ched's old bar.
Yeah, yeah.
And then Matthew Barakat and Dove are talking to me.
They go, but we'd love to do a restaurant on level one and ground.
It's a very odd shape.
Anyway, the long and short.
We're talking about in Double Bay.
The Double Bay.
The Bay Street Double Bay.
The old Neville Guzman building.
So the long and the short of it was I basically said, yeah, we'll do it.
Chinese restaurant.
So as we were designing and doing everything,
it was really clear that a lot of shared spaces were very tight
and had to be very well managed.
If someone else had the bar,
it would be almost impossible,
even just the simple things like garbages and bottles and cardboard.
We'd be fighting forever.
So they came to the realization that we should have the third level.
And as we're designing it and we're walking up the staircase,
I just sort of said, guys, are you going to cap this staircase off?
It's the one heritage piece in the whole building which has kind of stayed.
And people aren't going to be able to come up or down.
You're going to soundproof it so the office is okay.
And you've cut the –
the heritage core of this thing in half.
I said, it just doesn't make sense.
And they walked up and down and went, you're right.
So then I ended up with enough infrastructure and a 240-seat restaurant.
And if I'd had any idea how much it was going to cost,
I would have run for the hills.
But I kind of based it on the square meterage of Margaret.
And that was done just as we were coming out of the first lockdown
and builders were looking for work.
Cost much lower.
Oh, mate, the costs were like extraordinary.
The whole project, design, build, pre-operatings,
it's a $13 million four-floor project.
Oh, it's insane.
No one would do it except for me.
I'm an idiot.
But I like to do things really well and it is beautiful.
It's a beautiful space.
It's an amazing space and, you know, it's an amazing kitchen.
It's one of the world's great kitchens.
What's an amazing kitchen mean?
Oh, it's all induction, electric and, you know,
we created this beautiful induction suite and beautiful curve.
What does that mean?
Induction.
Induction, all electric, you know, cooking via.
So induction actually works with creating a generator,
creates friction within the pan.
The metal vibrates and creates heat and that's how it cooks.
And it only cooks when you put the pan on the induction,
either hob or the wok.
And it's all combis that steam and roast.
And we did this beautiful curved radius and then every other bench
has got these incredible curved radiuses,
which costs a shitload of money when you're turning,
stainless steel like that.
But they look beautiful.
And all the floors are beautiful and the heritage staircase is fantastic.
And Bobby's looks amazing downstairs, one of the great cocktail bars in Sydney.
And the menu?
We're talking about Chinese food.
Menu's sort of Cantonese with a little bit of Szechuan and Hunan through it,
but it's mainly Cantonese.
The roast duck is phenomenal there because it's the best duck.
What does that mean, the best duck?
Well, it's the wallamai ducks that are just incredible.
You know, they're a Peking style, but, you know,
they're really, truly free range.
The guy, you know, kills about 800 a week.
Peppies probably kill about 150,000 a week.
So the difference between kind of hand tooling a beautiful bird,
breasts are much thicker, the flavour's better, the skin.
We put it through a week's process of dry ageing,
so we've got a cool room that holds 350 ducks.
And then we roast in a couple of different fashions to get a really crisp skin
and beautiful tender flesh.
So that's amazing.
Dumplings are incredible.
Ginger and shallot, coral trout, we bring that all down from Bowen,
from Bruce Collison, sorry, Ben Collison, and, you know,
it's just without peer, steamed ginger and shallot.
Incredible Sun Farms.
Sambalan chicken, you know, they're just an incredible heritage bird
and we do those white cut and we do them master stock and fried crisp
and, you know, it's just eating great ingredients.
It's exactly like what Margaret is but with Chinese seasoning.
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The beautiful space, like, why, why, I mean, apart from, you could in this crappy little spot here,
you could cook me the same food and I could have the same taste sensation.
Yeah.
How, why, why is it so important to you?
Because I remember, I remember the old Rockville, the Rockville in Sydney, in Sydney, unbelievable space.
It still is a beautiful space.
Oh, it's one of the great art deco chambers in the world.
You know, there's no doubt.
Wonderful.
People talk about Eleven Madison in New York.
And I know Daniel, he's a great friend and it's a beautiful space, but it's nothing like, like that.
Rockville building is just wonderful.
So how, and you've always, you know, before that, when you were down at the Rocks, it was, it was still a great space.
Design space, yeah, yeah.
And you know, the casino, a bit different, but like, but Rosetta was a great space.
So why is Neil Perry associated with such great spaces?
Is it that, I mean, that's, is that, what's that got to do with, I mean, cooking and food, where's your dad, I get it, where's the spaces come from?
The aesthetic's really important to me, it always has been.
So, so for me, it's about creating that great memories, about creating a great environment to create great service, great food.
And so that, you know, a great memory and experience is a package, you know, it's not, oh, I ate some beautiful food, or, you know, I drank great wine, or I had fantastic service.
It's, it's the whole emotion that you have from the whole experience.
So for us, it's really important to create beautiful spaces for our customers.
And secondly, it's important.
We spend a lot of time designing spaces that are functional for the staff.
Right.
Because people need to work in an environment that they, that they can actually do their job really well in.
And a lot of people, because I cook for a living and the restaurants have always, the kitchen's designed first, and then we do everything else after that, I always make sure there's enough storage space and, and functional space and kitchen space.
And, and, you know, you say to people, oh, I've got a thousand square meters, or I've got 600 square meters, and I say, well, you've got to put 40% of that aside for all the infrastructure stuff, and then 60% for the customers.
And they go, oh, no, you, you know, you can't do that.
You, so they start eating away at all those things that make stuff really important from a staff perspective.
I mean, there's a really large restaurant group that just went broke recently.
I won't name, but they're, you know, from Martin Place, and they built a massive, big mega restaurant with a small kitchen, tiny pass, no, no prep space.
And so they're expecting all this stuff to happen.
And what happens is it just can't happen in the right time, you know.
With the right level of quality and, and the number of people that you're doing.
So you end up with a whole lot of disasters, you know.
So I might just change tack a little bit here, because I, I mentioned to you earlier before we started, I thought, I thought I saw one of your daughters in the city, but maybe not.
But let's talk about your family for a second.
Yeah.
Who's working in the business, and your wife also working in the business.
So you mentioned earlier that she's part of Margaret, and I think Songbird as well.
Well, I, I've left, I've left most of the family.
At Margaret.
Margaret.
And, and now, but now I'm starting to go back.
They'll start to kind of come across both.
So it was important to me when we opened Songbird that everyone realized that we just haven't abandoned Margaret.
You know, we need to have two fabulous restaurants.
And, you know, winning like Restaurant of the Year last year in the Good Food Guide, and being named third best steakhouse in the world.
And this year I, I was named the 50 Best Restaurants, the Icon Award.
As in Margaret?
No, they were all Margaret, but I, I was sort of named personally.
Oh, wow.
As an icon.
Which, which, you know, Thomas Keller and Alice Waters and Heston Blumenthal.
I mean, all these guys have been icons and girls have been icons over the, over the, over the years.
And so to be the first Australian and, and to get world recognition like that was fantastic.
But it's kept the momentum at Margaret going.
And, and I think the other thing is that it's genuinely a family restaurant.
Like people see me having a coffee and clearing tables at the bakery and chatting to people at the bakery.
And then I'm in at Margaret.
And I still, like this week I'm doing three full.
Shifts is cooking and calling service at Margaret and another couple of half ones.
I'll be over at Somburg a couple of shifts.
But, you know, Sam, my wife runs the pass on the, on the waiter's side at Margaret.
She does like Thursday night, double Friday, double Saturday, Sunday lunch.
Macy's doing uni and.
Macy and her children.
Yeah, Macy's one of my girls.
And she does like last week she double, but she did Thursday night and then double Saturday, double Sunday.
Goes to the gym every morning, juggles a boyfriend and uni.
I don't know how she does it, but you know, she's, she's got my kind of drive.
She, she, she's in it for the long haul.
I think you do know how she does it.
Yeah, yeah.
Indy's, you know, just, just finishing HSC year and she does polishing out the back and she'll come forward.
Macy hosts.
And Josephine, my oldest daughter, just had my beautiful little granddaughter, Riley, who's like the apple of my eye at the moment.
The other girls are getting jealous.
And, and JP runs the host desk and reservation team.
Oh, so Josephine's working there too?
Yeah, yeah.
So she's on maternity leave.
As well as.
As well as being a mum.
So, so everyone works in the family and, and yeah, we'll have to get little Riley at margaret.com, at margaretdoublebay.com email address early on so we can start communicating to her as a, as a restaurant crew.
I want to talk to you about, quickly about one last thing.
It's, you know, I could talk to you for hours because we don't, we don't have enough time, but because Australians don't like to listen to podcasts more than 45, 50 minutes, but, but, but I could talk to you for hours.
But I just want to talk about the phenomenon.
Yeah.
That you've created at Baker Blue.
Yeah.
And like, it's a business phenomenon.
I mean, it's actually, in terms of food, it's quite phenomenal too, but, but it doesn't get the same recognition as Margaret and everything else you do and have done.
Yeah.
But from a business point of view, I mean, I love it.
I look at it, it's so busy.
Yeah.
Baking bread.
Yes.
Effectively.
I mean, I'm not undermining it.
No, no, no, no.
It's beautiful bread.
No, it's great bread.
Great, great, great product, et cetera.
But like, I can imagine the margins are great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sitting in the middle of Double Bay, it's like you don't, it's not price sensitive because
people around there just say, oh, I'm going to Baker Blue to get my food.
Yeah.
And they don't think, no one even, wouldn't even know the prices.
They wouldn't have a clue.
I'm one of them.
Yeah.
And when I say, oh, that, that, that, that, and I, and I, I, I just look at whatever
it is and I'm, you know, putting my card on there and I'm walking out.
It's have and go, isn't it good?
It's so good for you.
It's not as good as cash though, man.
No, no, no.
We won't talk about that.
But, but Baker Blue, just quickly cover off where that idea come from.
Yeah, sure.
And then, and then what is it?
Well, the, you know, Baker Blue is Mike, Mike, Mike Russell and Mia Russell.
So they, they started it.
Mike worked for me at the original Roppel Bar and Grill in Sydney, on the original,
the Roppel Bar and Grill in Sydney.
He was the, the original second pastry chef.
Catherine was the chef.
He worked through me, with me for nine months, went through to the first Christmas from March.
And then he left because he wanted to go and bake.
And I was, I really liked him and it was such a shame.
He went and worked for Iggy for a while.
Then he went down to Melbourne.
He started his own bakery and through doing some fundraisers with Ben Shuri, I kept running
into him and, you know, we just sort of get kindled the relationship back.
And I just said to him, look, as soon as you get your bigger bakery, we want you to do
Roppel Bar and Grill in Melbourne and Rosetta in Melbourne with the bread, because it's
definitely the best bread.
And during COVID, I started a charity called Hope Delivery.
We did 800,000 meals, which was fantastic.
We worked through Oz Harvest as well as in Melbourne.
We, we gave out meals, Riverside.
So, so that was a really fantastic thing.
And the guys from Mervac were talking to me about potentially giving me a space down in
South Everleigh.
And I wanted to do a bakery where if you bought a loaf of bread, a loaf of bread went to a
family and that we put a cafe in and made it a social enterprise.
So we were teaching refugees and teaching young kids and young First Nations kids how
to be a barista, how to serve a table.
So it would be a community cafe.
So I was talking to Mike.
So if I wanted to set up a bakery, so he, he taught me through it all.
And he basically, you know, fundamentally gave me the blueprint of this is how much
money we would need.
This is what you'd have to do, dah, dah, dah.
So anyway, Dove and Matthew went, look, we've got this great space to Guilfoy next to Margaret.
We want to do a restaurant.
What do you think we should do?
And I kind of looked at the space and unlike Margaret, it's got a nice frontage.
But it's essentially very long, narrow walls.
And I went, what about doing something that's much more community focused that everybody
can get involved with?
Because, you know, coffee and bread and sandwiches is much more sort of everyday experience to
what, to what, and it also adds, you know, for the people who work in the area and the
people who shop in there, it adds a layer that the community didn't have anything like
that at all.
So, so I said, I rang Mike and I said, mate, how would you like to be my partner in,
double bay?
And, you know, we, he came up, we sat down, they saw the space, I had dinner with them
at, at Rockpool Bar and Grill.
And, and I essentially put to them a partnership with Sam and myself and Mia and he, and they
jumped at it.
Rest is history.
We've done it.
It's massively busy.
It's probably takes more money than any other bakery in Sydney, 50% of its food service.
So we make sandwiches and pizza and we take the best bread.
It's just baked there over near where the lounge is.
It comes here and it's sliced.
We put the same level of ingredients that we put in in terms of quality, like we, we
have our butcher who gets the David Blackmore product here.
He, he pumps the silver sides for us.
The butcher that, that is there used to work at Rockpool for seven years.
Pete does it to our recipe, makes the hams to our recipe.
Everything comes in, you know, Pino does our salamis and, and mortadella, which I think
are the best around.
You know, we use really high quality chicken.
We use really.
High quality fruit and veg, um, when, you know, we take the Alpine salmon out of, out
of Mount Cook, out of New Zealand, we cure it for, we don't smoke, we cure it to make
a pastrami for our bagels because, you know, I don't even want to talk about what Tasmanian
salmon is and the crap that, you know, we talk about smoked salmon here in Australia.
So all of that stuff, you know, make the pickles, we do all this sort of stuff.
So, and, and by the way, there's a lot of pastries as well.
And great pastries.
And it makes the best sandwiches because you take the best ingredients, the best bread,
the best cobbetry butter, which is the best.
You know, the best sort of butter going, my name's on it.
So of course it is help.
I helped create it.
Um, and you end up with the best sandwich that we have people like they just kill for those
sandwiches.
Yeah, it's extraordinary.
And I, cause I mean, I, I often go there and, um, I think this stuff's wonderful and it's
funny if every time we go to the center, see you, you always sort of around the area, always
watching him.
You must work an enormous amount of hours.
Yeah, I do, but I don't think about it as work.
No, because you love it.
You know, yeah, that cliche about find something you love and you have a work a day in your
life.
I mean.
The, the whole, the whole thing is the day that I wake up and don't want to get up and
go down and have a coffee at Baker Blue and chat, you know, the first thing I do is I
look at the bread, look at the pastries.
I go in and see George who runs my food services, worked for me, you know, he was with me at
Baron Joey house, not Baron Joey, um, Blue Water Grill with me at Rockpool.
Wow.
So, so, you know, he runs that.
I chat to him about some of the things cause he started cutting the bread already and the
bagels.
I go straight in, I see Will the head baker or Nick, the number two, if it's his, his
day.
And I just say, yeah, great work guys.
The bread looks fantastic.
Or, you know, rise a bit flat.
What happened?
And we've worked through it.
GR pastry chef.
We talked through that.
So that, you know, that's my first sort of 30 minutes down in the bakery, just chatting
to the guys about well done.
It looks great.
Blah, blah.
Usually, you know, 99% of the time it's well done.
Occasionally it's like rise a bit flat today.
What happened?
You know, and they'll talk me through cause it's a living organism, right?
So, you know, all of a sudden it's wet and rainy or it's humid and hot and the weather's
jumping around or a new batch of flour comes in.
That's slide.
It's slightly more absorbent or less absorbed.
I've learned a lot.
I like, I've always appreciated flour as a, as a chef and working with the guys in pastry
baking as a whole new aspect of that.
So, so that's where my day starts.
And then I'm at Margaret and I'm over at Sombird talking to the chefs.
And generally for me, I would be going straight to the boys who are dry filleting the fish.
And I'm talking through what's coming in, you know, what the fish is looking like, filleting
and it's under rigor.
You know, it's beautiful.
We're talking about how much more fish.
I think.
We'll need this week looking at the meat that's cut being coming in, you know, my aging room
is out at, out at, uh, near, near Brookvale in, in, um, the Northern beaches, just completely
full of all the beef that we, we use and our butcher cuts it and sends it in each day.
So having control of that and then talking to the chefs about what the menu is going
to be.
Um, and then often I'll be doing briefing if I'm on like Saturday and Sunday and, and
Thursday and Friday night last week, I did, uh, I worked in the kitchen at Margaret.
So I'll run the, the food side of the briefing every night.
We, we talked to all the staff and every morning we talked to all the front of house staff
about what's on, what's an addition to the menu, um, where something's from, what the
oyster change is, particular fish, you know, whatever it might be.
Like at the moment we're running through a lot of things where winter stuff's going out
and fruits are coming in and stuff.
So those conversations are really important.
I do the same thing at Songbird and, um, and, and that's then the start of my day.
Then I'm, you know, in the kitchen or talking to customers and, and in the afternoon I'll
be.
I'll be, you know, doing some stuff with the chefs or I'll be in doing, at the moment
I'm working on a whole lot of recipes for Cobram olive oil because we work really closely
with them.
Plus that's when I sit down with my CEO and CFO and just run through stuff from the previous
day, the previous week, you know, set up for our Wednesday meetings or whatever it might
be.
So that kind of happens.
And then the weekend starts and it's just full on.
It's just, it's just restaurants.
And where do you, and the energy, where's it come from?
You feel more energized now than you've ever done.
I'd say.
I feel, um, more in control of my life than I ever had because I, I, I, I really don't
want to do anything else except for grow the bakeries.
So we'll have more, we'll have more shops in Sydney and I want to do it.
More like, more Baker Blues.
Yeah, more Baker Blues.
I don't want any more restaurants.
I just want Margaret and Songbird and Bobby's and Nextdoor to run at the, at the, you know,
peak of their powers, you know, making, like I go to Nextdoor once every couple of weeks
and have the burger there because the cheeseburger there is just absolutely fantastic.
Absolutely.
It's fantastic.
I could have one every day, but then I wouldn't look like I do.
So, um, so I, I really love that.
And, uh, for me, you know, I'm financially stable.
I don't have any partners apart from Baker Blue and, and, and, um, Natalie and, and Lyndon
in, in, uh, Bobby's, uh, there are two little partnerships, but they're, they're kind of
more like giving those guys opportunities within Sydney.
I feel like I've made enough money to help younger, but they're all in their forties
and, you know, I'd really like to help them grow.
And, you know, they have the aspirations that I've had and stabilize their life the
way I've been able to stabilize mine.
And we own our own businesses, you know, and the bank is very happy with me.
And, you know, the kids are beautiful and got a gorgeous granddaughter.
And, you know, I mean, I just don't even know what, what more I could have in life that
would, you know, make me happier.
It's amazing.
Um, I can see it in your eyes.
I mean, and it's, I can see it in everything you do.
You seem to be like at a really great place in peace of peace of mind.
Yeah.
But still active, plenty of energy.
I sort of think, you know, my life's been like, you know, I think I break it into sort
of, um, sections of my life that are like, there was one part that was, that was my life
was growing to be able to create Rockpool, which was one of the great restaurants in
the world.
Um, and that, that then became Rockpool Bar and Grill.
And then I sold that business and I never thought I would do that.
You know, if anyone had said to me in the early two thousands or nineties, would you
ever sell this?
I would have said, I will die.
With this restaurant brand, you know, it's me, it's part of my DNA.
Um, and then I was lucky enough to be able to sell it.
And then I was lucky enough to be able to, so I realized all that hard work that I put
in.
I realized the reward from that because, you know, it's like you're often be in putting
in tremendous amounts of hours and, and just reinvesting in your business and reinvesting
in your business.
And I finally got to the stage where I was able to, you know, get, get a great reward
for all the energy I'd put in and for all the ideas that I'd have.
And at that stage, I really didn't think that I'd walk away from it completely, but, you
know, COVID started and there were a few other things and they wanted to take the business
in this direction and I wanted to go in that direction.
And the guys from Quadrant, um, Chris and JP at the time were really fantastic.
They said, look, you can go and open this little restaurant.
They didn't have to do that because I had constraints over me and stuff.
And, uh, you know, meeting Charles and all those guys was really important and, um, you
know, found a great landlord.
You know, I felt took a risk because the rents were kind of like city rents, but, but, you
know, in the, in the suburbs, but COVID had changed the way Double Bay was, well, not,
not even Double Bay, all suburbs were working.
People were feeling comfortable in their community and spending much more time there
than in the city.
And even if they went to the city, they were coming back to have lunch or have dinner or
whatever it might be.
And then, uh, and then, you know, I've really now it's named after my mother.
So it's so personal.
So I won't, you know, there'll be no selling this, this one.
And we've kind of.
Named it the Margaret family because we don't really see it as being corporate or a group.
It's, you know, it's a family that owns these businesses that they live in and thrive in.
And, uh, our customers are so important to us.
Our staff are even more important to us.
And we're able to make decisions every day, not based on what the bottom line is.
I wouldn't say we don't care about that because we, you know, we do because we've got to run
a business, we've got to reward the staff and so forth, but that's not our main motivation.
Our motivation is, you know, how good are we?
How much joy are we bringing?
How much enjoyment do the staff have working for us?
Um, what, uh, what privileges we can give them, um, and, and what leg up we can give them
in their career or life or whatever.
And that, and that really is how we think now or how I think particularly.
And so for me, that gives me so much joy and, and happiness.
And, um, and now that I'm out of that little dark four week period at Somburg that almost
killed me, uh, I'm, you know, I'm really happy and, and, and, you know, things are going
really, really well.
Well, Neil.
Neil Perry, thanks for your relentlessness.
Thanks for continually giving us education about what's, what's great food, what's a
great space, what's a great experience.
But probably right now, thanks for what you do to the communities within which you operate.
That's not just your staff and your family and your family staff, but also the people
you, you serve.
Thank you.
And, uh, it's really important.
You, you are, I, I mean, I actually think, you know, I've always been a Neil Perry fan,
but it's easier to say that.
Yeah.
Because Neil Perry is sort of, you know, iconic and famous, but.
I've just been around for a long time.
Yeah, but, but that's part of the game.
And, uh, thanks for being such a great survivor in such a tough industry.
Thank you.
Full of critics and you've come out shining, mate.
Well done.
Thanks, man.
Good to be here.
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