Neil Perry

Neil was running late to our meeting at Rockpool at the Rocks, Sydney. He spends most of his days running - from one of his restaurants to another, from one board meeting to another, to Qantas training sessions. He is a busy man, a businessman. More often in a suit than in a chef's jacket. And he is a man who expects his team to perform. He was running late because he had to deal with a "minor revolt" of his chefs after the catering manager at a function had not kept the casual waiters on to clean up following a 4am finish, so the chefs ended up doing it. "He (the luckless manager) has gone home, and when he comes back I'll have to kill him".

Neil sets himself a killing pace too and makes sure the staff follow. He started in the industry at the age of 19 in Sails restaurants and later decided to dedicate himself to learning from the industry leaders of the time. "They really gave me a lot of inspiration at the beginning. I worked with Damien Pignolet in 1982 and was inspired by the quality of his drive and aspiration, the quality of product. And Stephanie (Alexander) gave me the sense that restaurants are a hard place, things don't change all the time. So though you may be making the same pasta dish for six months, your inspiration should be to make it better from first attempt to last. And (also from Stephanie) the fact that cooking is a craft and you have to hone that skill".

Then he became head chef at Barrenjoey Restaurant, Palm Beach, and two years later opened the Blue Water Grill at Bondi. He was nearly 30 then but pictures at the time show him as a young ponytailed spunk in tight jeans. Both he and the grill became famous. Everyone loved Blue Water Grill, it was just what Sydney wanted at the end of the expensive nouvelle cuisine era. Neil recalls, "it was surf, sand and Sauvignon Blanc. It was great, we just tried to cook lovely, simple food, the menu was eclectic, and had a lot of Asian influences. It was just meant to be a beach experience."

In 1988 he went into partnership with his cousin, Trish Richards, and a year later Rockpool was born, heralding the beginning of a restaurant and catering empire. Now there is the flagship restaurant, the acclaimed Rockpool, Wockpool at Darling Harbour; (Star Grill, Potts Point is on the market), the MCA Cafe, the catering, the consulting contract with Qantas, Bistro Mars at Rushcutters Bay, and other plans. This means about 300 staff and responsibility for another 80 with Qantas. "It is a lot of worry but I sleep well, I am pretty tired. I stay calm about it, I have got really fantastic people around me. The kitchens are always (when there are no rioting chefs) functioning very well". The spread of all this means that Neil won't often be found in the kitchens, though usually at the end of the year finds he is needed there. "I like to get dragged back a bit more because it gets me back in contact with food again, and it drives the creative push".

Neil believes that at Rockpool the food comes from a variety of influences, honed into an individual style, whereas at Wockpool it is more ingredient inspired. At the MCA it is more Mediterranean, and at Bistro Mars it is classic French bistro dishes. Though the food is much admired, Neil attributes the success and longevity of Rockpool to "having a very strong business plan and trying to integrate that with a strong ethical philosophy about the quality of food. Because it is easy to go into a restaurant and start ripping out all the things that give you the edge because they cost you a lot more money". Then there is the question about how much you should, and can, do personally or "you actually start to trust the people that you work with and give them opportunities".

"At the end of the day I don't know which is the better way. Some days I think back and imagine having a restaurant that was only open dinners, playing tennis all day and staying up drinking late at night. Sometimes I dream of that as a lifestyle when working until midnight, starting work next day at 5am; facing a meeting with the landlord about his wanting to increase the percentage of turnover he receives for your lease, or arguing about how much money we should be earning over our consultancy, then you wonder if it's worthwhile. But once you have made that decision, you are stuck with it and you just have to keep on pressing on. It is a lot to juggle and you sometimes question why you continue to take on more things but they always seem like a good idea in the beginning. Otherwise you would never do it".

"In the beginning I just wanted to cook really good food". But it seems that he doesn't miss that and gets a huge buzz about never doing the same thing every day. Sometimes he finds it frustrating because he never gets the chance to finish any one thing but fortunately has staff who do. "I just talk to them and things happen," but this does not extend to menu changes and the direction of the kitchen. Neil does not believe in the egalitarian kitchen, "you need to keep the thread." Part of this process is checking out the dishes in the different establishments. "I probably eat in one of them at least once a week, because I really like the food in my restaurants. People think that sounds like a bit of a wank, but I really like the dishes and the food."

The other secret, for Neil, of a good restaurant is maintenance. Rockpool is impeccably looked after, the carpet and walls look fresh, and Neil revealed that they "paint twice a year". The other secret is administration, "now we have got Rockpool consulting, we have got eighteen people in the office. We will have to close down at some point over the next three years, for about three months to redo some stuff, we will rip the kitchen out, and redo the whole thing. Everything has been pushed when you do 55,000 covers a year for two years in a row. That's about 1,100 people a week, for ten years".

What had led to this phenomenal success? "I think it is the attention to detail. The most important thing in a restaurant is that you have got to have a really caring mentality, caring that it is clean, that it is properly maintained, that we have enough staff, that they properly interact with each other, and that all brings about the most important thing, which is that everyone cares about the customer. That is the fundamental philosophy of the Rockpool. It is caring and making sure that everything is right. We talk about that at Qantas, and that is about the open door and not letting the open door close. So that we get everything right. It's not talking about elements in isolation, whether it be about petit fours, canapÈs, tea, coffee, and the way the service relates to that. It is a holistic approach to that".

A review of Rockpool and a 1991 interview with him

Neil Perry's Recipes

Stir fried spanner crab omelette
Aged beef with grilled vegetable salad an anchovy butter
Passionfruit tart