Last night we had the great pleasure of hosting the La Mer 10th anniversary dinner, a special collaboration with Autore pearls. La Mer and Rockpool are two brands driven by the same philosophy using the best quality ingredient and supporting sustainability so it made perfect sense for us to create a wonderful seafood dinner for them.

Autore made some amazing pearl pieces for the dinner and my beautiful wife Sam was lucky enough to wear a fantastic string of pearls for the evening. By the end I realised it was going to be expensive for me as she took to wearing them and decided she would absolutely love a set. Perhaps Christmas darling! 

The dinner started out with canapés and Moet Chandon. We then had fun serving ceviche of pearl meat in its shell and one lucky guest found a pearl in their ceviche, it was followed by amazingly fresh fish sliced raw over sushi rice, the main of bar cod cooked shiny skin style with oysters butter poached sauce and slivers of prawns was fitting for the La Mer theme, the night finished with strawberry and mascarpone cake and lots of good wine from the Orange producer Patina.

Beef dry ageing in Melbourne this is really what it is all about, the only way to truly age beef. The enzymes have done their bit, now the meat dehydrates and intensifies in flavour and tenderness. We are taking them out to minimum 50 days maximum 80 and they really are extraordinary.

This is what makes a great steak house, we are defined by the quality and difference in our beef and no one can touch us currently. The 36 month grass fed is clean and long with a great taste of beef, the Rangers creamy from the grain feeding and the Blackmore Wagyu is out of this world with cameral popcorn flavours and an amazing texture, we are the only restaurant in the world dry aging this product.

All our beef is from older animals and as such has great flavour. So if you want to try the best beef in the country, come on down Rockpool Bar & Grill – Sydney or Melbourne - or both!

Phil and I are just back from Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand where we did a wine dinner with Dry River Winery. It was a great night and the wine and food were very well received by the guests. They all enjoyed a weekend of golf, wine, food, relaxing and a cooking class by me on Saturday morning.  It is the first one I have done in years and I hope that they learnt a bit more about eating well at home by the end of it. Phil and I had a couple of long hard days in the kitchen to get the 5 course dinner out, but were ably assisted by Dale and his kitchen team. They have a really good group there and some of the best food I have eaten in NZ was over that weekend. Dale made us a really lovely dinner on the Thursday night with some local seafood and lamb as the main, all washed down with a few glasses of Stonyridge.

The day of the dinner was long, but really rewarding as the food came out just as Phil and I wanted, so in the end, satisfaction. The wines were terrific and I think I may have had one glass too many of the 01 pinot. The paua and xo salad and scampi dishes were winners as was the quail pie,.. it only took all of Friday to put that one to bed. The lamb was perfectly cooked sous vide at 67 degrees. Kori the pastry chef did a cracking job on the custard apple and mascarpone cake so the meal came to an awesome end.

Unfortunately I had to come back the next day after some Tunisian eggs and a book signing. I can’t wait to get back there as it really is one of the most beautiful places on earth and all the staff were fantastic to work with.

At the conclusion of this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards Rockpool in The Rocks and Rockpool Bar and Grill Sydney both took home 2 of the coveted little hats each.

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney, continued it’s award winning ways taking out the Best New Restaurant title.

For Simon’s full story on Rockpool Bar & Grill – winner of Best New Restaurant click here.

For a full list of this year’s winners click here.

We had a great night at The Age Good Food Guide Awards in Melbourne last night.

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne was awarded two coveted hats and given a score of 17/20 in the Good Food Guide.  Below is the fantastic review which appears in the Guide.

Neil Perry’s philosophy, writ large on Rockpool’s ample menu, is simple: ‘The cornerstone of good cooking is to source the finest produce.’  It’s one of the reasons Rockpool remains among this town’s sharpest operations.  It helps that the dining room is large and chic in the gentlemen’s-club mould, and manages to accommodate everyone from couples seeking a discreet corner table to besuited clans wielding corporate credit cards.  Nothing fazes the sartorially smart stafff, whether you’re a high-roller ordering 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild to partner a hundred-dollar steak (it’s wagyu) or just chasing a burger (also wagyu) and beer at the bar.  Though beef is worshipped here – sourced specially, hung carefully and cooked appropriately – there’s planty else on offer.  From the ‘cold seafood bar’, you might pick sashimi of ocean trout, yellowfin tuna and kingfish finished with a delicate soy sauce and ginger-vinegar dressing.  And the sides are fabulous: potato and cabbage gratin should be compulsory.  There are occasional glitches – a prawn omelette might be too dry, its sauce too dominant – but they’re rare enough not to detract from the experience created by Australia’s most famous chef.