Dear Mr Neil Perry,

My partner and I have been celebrating his 40th birthday since Tuesday.  On Thursday, we were continuing our week of enjoying food and we were walking through The Rocks during the afternoon.  We noticed and were immediately impressed with both the creativity and simplicity of your Oyster Bar menu and decided that we should return for dinner.

We had been to Rockpool in the past and always enjoyed your food.  When we returned we ordered, at Martin’s suggestion, the ceviche as an entree to share and I had the fish and chips as a main, my partner the crispy fish and rice.  Both my partner and I thoroughly enjoyed our choices and the fish was so fresh and delicious.  We also appreciated the passion and detail for wine (particularly Jerez), exhibited so genuinely by Matthew, your sommelier.

We then each had the rosewater granita with vanilla panna cotta.  We loved the rosewater granita dessert so much that we asked for a serve of the granita alone and to our delight it was given to us compliments of the pastry chef.  We just wanted to let your team know that we thought very highly of the Oyster Bar and particularly of the really natural and sincere hospitatlity you offer which is at the very same time formal and perfectly appropriate.

We noticed also that your birthday is coming up and so, indeed many happy returns!

Woodfire Grill - Rockpool Bar & Grill

They moved my charcoal oven early this morning and got me totally out of the shit. To the kitchen guys – a big kiss and thank you so much. What an agonising day it was yesterday wondering if I should change it or not, it was a pain for the guys but it is going to work much better for the next ten years.

All the beautiful doors are on upstairs and are just waiting for the glass. The carpenters should finish up there tomorrow. Barry, Sam and Andy, the foremen on the floors, are working miracles with the contractors who are all putting in fabulous efforts. Even Jasen, who is managing the contract, seems to think it may get there. Bill for Stoddard’s – the kitchen contractors - is doing an amazing job trying to keep in front of the game, not easy with the pressure they have all been under.

Friday is looking huge at Spice Temple and I’m doing the 20 year anniversary dinner at Rockpool on Saturday night. Then on Sunday I have to get stuck into the Rockpool Bar & Grill menus on to make sure they are all perfect. I feel there are a couple of dishes that need to come off and a few more needing to go on.

The last  of the ground floor carpet is being laid tonight, and the furniture will begin arriving on Saturday. The kitchen is getting closer to finished and the bar is starting to take shape. How wonderful it was to  see some of the stone going on the front of the bar. The cool rooms for our wine have the viewing panels cut out and the large glass doors have gone in, just after they pushed the BBQ through the only hole it would fit through in the building. This area has changed dramatically in the last 4 days since they started putting the ceilings in.

Spice Temple's array of chillies

As Spice lays down the chillies the builders are working like crazy upstairs.  My beautiful kitchens are coming together and the dining room is looking like it is going to make the deadline.  Tomorrow the wood-fire and charcoal grills move into position.  It is thrilling at the moment as things change daily.  The builders are doing a fantastic job, every trade is pushing as hard as they can to get changes happening not just daily, but hourly.

Khan and I are working through the menus, the staff and all the suppliers.  I want every station and fridge in the kitchen to be marked so we know what is going in there and which dishes are produced from each section.  We have an ambitious plan, a dining room menu of over 70 items, a wine bar menu (home of the Wagyu burger) with 40 items and a function menu upstairs with two gorgeous private rooms.

No doubt there will be times over the next few weeks where I will wonder why I have done this.  Lots of drama to come, staff training starts in a week and a half, I can’t believe this dream is becoming a reality. 

One week after we open I have to put together the Ultimate Dinner; to have 2 super-star international chefs, in the form of Heston (Blumenthal) and Thomas (Keller), coming in to work alongside our own great chefs Tets, Guillaume and Peter Gilmore, in the Rockpool Bar & Grill kitchen – its daunting!

We will do it – we have a great team, but what a hell of a couple of months we are all in for…

Romanee Conti, 1945

Well, maybe not solved, but at Rockpool Bar & Grill we spend a lot of time thinking about how our wine program will match with the amazingly varied menu that will be delighting diners for a long time to come.  Unlike many ordinary steakhouse style restaurants, we serve a lot more than just steak on a plate.  We have steaks, yes, but also some of the best seafood, pastas, vegetarian dishes – you name it.

What does this mean to you?  Glad you asked.  It means that unlike with nearly any other restaurant you can name, we have a menu that will pair with nearly any wine.  Whether it’s Shiraz, Bordeaux, Tempranillo from Spain, the best from Italy or for that matter, California, we have food that will be a great match for any of these.  Same with the whites: wines from anywhere in the World will find a match on the menu.

This is not a typical situation for a restaurant.  If you are at an Italian restaurant, you generally expect to drink Italian wines or Italian-like wines, such as Pinot Grigio or Shiraz.  French?  Drink one of the many, many wines from France, including Shiraz.  Tapas bars need Spanish wine, of course, or Shiraz.  And we all know, Japanese food often cries out for Sake, or Shiraz.

At Rockpool Bar & Grill, however, when you have a steak you could have a great Bordeaux, a nice Pinot Noir from Oregon or New Zealand, one of the top Italians such as Sassicaia or a perfectly aged Barolo.  And Shiraz is a superb match with a nice cut of beef too.  This list could go on indefinitely because nearly every wine region in the world creates a wine that fits with the far ranging menu of Rockpool Bar & Grill.

Given the enormous flexibility of the menu and its wine friendly nature, we decided that we didn’t need to focus the list in any particular area or away from any specific styles of wine.  This is a restaurant that can handle the World’s variety of wines, and we mean to provide that to our diners.  The only question became, where are we going to put it all?  We are still working on that one, but when you sit down at Rockpool Bar & Grill in Sydney, you will have choices from all of the great wine regions.  In some cases, you’ll have a lot of choices, such as the 375 different Red Bordeaux’s or the 700 or so different white wines from all around the globe.

In the next posting we’ll talk a bit more about how the list came about and why we think it will be one of the very top wine lists in the World.  When wine lovers come to Sydney, we expect that most of them will want to come down to 66 Hunter Street and take a look at what we’ve been able to put together, and hopefully they’ll enjoy a great glass of Shiraz with the amazing Wagyu Burger.

Wine, Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney

SPICE TEMPLE LICENSED!

It’s been a while coming and frankly we are a little excited.  As much fun as we have had being BYO at Spice Temple, it is a whole lot MORE fun being able to show off our sensational 100 bottle wine list to the the world.

100 Wines Explained in 100 Words

Why 100 wines exactly?  To force this list to be the best possible match for Neil Perry’s extraordinary Asian food.  Every wine fights for its place on this list.  When a new wine arrives, another leaves.  Think it’s easy?  It’s not.
Each wine has a reason: to match with a special dish, for a celebration, or to just have a nice glass at lunch.
Whether you want crisp, rich, dry or off-dry, you can find it here.
No matter which you choose we are confident you will be happy.
Explore and Enjoy!

http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/spice-temple/  or http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/spice-temple/flashblocks/data/downloads/Spice-Temple_S_Wine.pdf

Neil Perry and Annie Feolde

To celebrate an amazing 50 years of Vittoria Coffee (www.vittoriacoffee.com.au), Les Schirato has brought the extraordinary Annie Feolde to Australia.  Born in France, Annie herself is  celebrating 47 years with her restaurant in Florence – Enoteca Pinchiorri (www.enotecapinchiorri.com).

Annie is the first female chef in Italy to be awarded 3 Michelin stars.  And she is not only a great chef, but a truly beautiful person. 

This morning we cooked up a storm over the wok (not her usual cooking receptacle) for 9am with David and Kim… “stir fried chopped duck with coriander and black vinegar” – a very simple recipe.  There was a raised eyebrow or two at the amount of chilli going into the wok, but I noticed Annie came back for seconds!  It was great to cook with her. 

The recipe is below if you’d like to raise a few eyebrows of your own!

STIR FRIED CHOPPED DUCK WITH CORIANDER AND BLACK VINEGAR

200g minced duck thigh
5g sesame oil
7g ginger, smashed
7g garlic, smashed
85g Spanish onion, sliced
12g sun dried chilli
10g roasted and crushed peanuts
10g shaoxing (Chinese cooking wine)
10g light soy sauce
5g white vinegar
5g black vinegar
22g coriander stem, cut into batons.

Stir fry the duck mince until it’s just cooked and remove from the wok.  Stir fry the ginger and garlic until fragrant, then add the onion, sun dried chilli and peanuts.  Deglaze wok with shaoxing, then add soy, sugar and black vinegar.  Return the duck to the wok and add the coriander stem, combine well and serve.
* All ingredients can be found in your local Chinatown supermarkets.

The team at Bar & Grill Melbourne are certainly doing what they can to help the Victorian Bushfire Appeal and have raised an impressive $6955.  I could not be more proud.

Throughout the course of a week all Rockpool Bar & Grill staff offered to donate their tips - this raised the first $3,500 which was followed by another stellar effort on Valentine’s Day.

In conjunction with Street Smart, customers dining with us on Saturday 14th  recieved a flyer in their bill folder asking for donations to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.  The community minded team at Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne once again offered to donate all tips as well as anything else the customers wanted to add.

A final charitable donation of a $300 gift voucher to dine in our beautiful Melbourne restaurant is due to go under the hammer very soon and this will raise further funds for those who need it most.

For further information on donating to the Victorian Bushfire appeal, please visit the Red Cross website.  http://www.redcross.org.au/vic/services_emergencyservices_victorian-bushfires-appeal-2009.htm

Got absolutely murdered in the kitchen at Spice Temple on Saturday night, 160 covers practically all at once.  It went really well and the guys did a great job.  I was proud of every dish that went out. 

This was all after the fire alarm went off at ten to six and we had to evacuate the building, what a crazy thing to happen.  Typical of the fire guys setting the restaurant up – not allowing a heat detector in the kitchen instead of a smoke detector.  The steam from the combi oven sets it off every time.  Oh well, it will be fixed on Monday.

More back of house things to sort out, but it’s week four and we have done 1100 covers!

Building bloody restaurants, who would do it…especially after the trouble we have had getting the liquor licence through.  Please let it happen this week, it has now cost us $100k in turnover and is sending us into the red, the Bar & Grill will kill us if we can’t get it through in time.  Maybe we have to rethink how many staff we can hold and for how long if this keeps up.

On the way home I popped in to see if Bar & Grill had had a good day in the building stakes.  The cooling tower was heading to the roof when I arrived in the afternoon and, thankfully, had made it without incident – such a massive crane.

Inside, the level one kitchen is really taking shape and a great development is that the sand screed has gone down in the ground floor kitchen.  Come Monday they start the tiling which is fantastic as it means we are on track for the kitchen equipment that arrives for that area on Friday.

On track, yes, on track.  Time is tight but things are happening to the program…awesome!!

(more…)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US…

Rockpool is turning 20 years old this month – February 28th to be exact.

It seems like only yesterday we threw open the doors to our wonderful restaurant, and Trish and I couldn’t be more proud!

Restaurants have come and gone, menus have changed, I have had more sleepless nights than I care to remember (plenty more to come I am sure)…but Rockpool stands strong and proud.

One of the greatest things going for us over the last 20 years has been the loyalty of our staff, the great committment from our suppliers past and present, and of course the extraordinary presence of our wonderful customers.

We really hope you will join us on more than the odd occasion in 2009, to sample what we are calling “Rockpool’s menu of the classics”.  We have taken a bunch of our best dishes from 1989 to 2009 and put together a 5 course tasting menu.  We will change it regularly throughout the year to bring back all those wonderful memories.

To kick start the birthday celebrations, we will be serving the following: ~

Zucchini and parmesan tart (2003)

Mud crab and sweet pork salad with green mango, salt and pepper tofu (1994)

Grilled king prawns with goat’s cheese tortellini, pine nuts and raisins (1991)

Seared spice crusted yellowfin tuna with moroccan style eggplant salad (1989)

Slow roast english breed lamb with “our ratatouille”
and aioli mayonnaise (1992)

Date tart (1984)

Coffee and petits fours

Should you wish to dine with us on Saturday February 28th, you can add a good slice of birthday cake to that!  But don’t be slow – bookings are close to full.  Call us on 02 9252 1888 to save a seat.