Hi, I'm Gus Wallin and this is not an overnight success brought to you by
Shaw & Partners Financial Services. This is a podcast where we sit down with some
very successful people from the world of business, entertainment and sport and
chat about their life's journey and what got them to the position that they're in
today. In today's episode we are chatting with Neil Perry. Neil Perry is one of
Australia's most influential restaurateurs. He has spent decades
creating iconic venues and special experiences through places like Rockpool,
Spice Temple and now his latest creation, Margaret. Neil has also been
creating menus for Qantas since 1997 and has published many cookbooks and Good
Weekend columns. Neil's approach to successful business is quite different
to what you may expect. He believes in and acts through what he calls the care
philosophy. There's a unique take on what it takes to be successful in the
hospitality world and places a lot of importance on building the right
culture around you. In this chat, Neil speaks passionately about social issues
like climate, sustainability, the pandemic and supporting visa holders in
Australia and he considers the platforms of which being a successful chef has
given him a privilege. As for all these podcasts, Shaw and Partners have
generously donated $10,000 to the charity of The Choice of Our Guest. We
discuss who gets that money in this chat. The executive producer of this podcast
is Keisha Pettit with production assistance from Kelly Stubbs and Brittany
Hughes. We recorded this interview at Margaret while the chefs were starting
to prep for lunch service, so you'll hear a fair bit of that in the background.
Let's get into our chat with Neil Perry.
Neil, good morning. How are you?
Good, Gus, and you?
I'm very well. We're sitting in Margaret, which is your restaurant down in Double Bay
named after your mum. I love that.
Can you tell us why you named it after your mum?
Mate, she has been recently, well, very instrumental in my hospitality career as
a restaurateur because my father, it's pretty well documented that my dad, you
know, had a massive influence on me in the way that I cook. You know, he was a
butcher and a fisherman and a gardener. And so produce, seasonality, all those
sorts of things are really important to me. I didn't realise at the time, but I
was getting an amazing education in those by being in the garden with him,
fishing with him, the sort of meat that he brought home, the knife skills that he
and my brothers had because they were butchers as well.
You know, we had an aviary out the back, so we had chickens and I just sort of
took for granted that eggs always tasted like that, but they don't necessarily.
But by the same token, mum was amazing because she was incredibly generous and
hospitable. We were sort of a bit of an extended family, Brady bunch.
I was the youngest of seven and my dad had four kids and my mum had two.
And so I was the only one related to everybody.
But often there would be cousins or nieces or nephews living for extended
periods of time whenever there was issues in the family with us.
And that was really mum's sense of generosity and family.
And so I run the restaurants that I've had since 1989 through the care philosophy.
And that really came from mum.
So I sort of thought it was important that this restaurant's the first one I've
ever owned 100 per cent on my own or my family own it with me.
So it was important that maybe I honoured her as much as I've talked about my dad
because she was just as instrumental.
So, yeah, I love that story.
And when you talk about care, can you give us a bit of an understanding of what that
philosophy is? Because I'm assuming someone like you has purpose in your life now
and you do things for a certain reason.
And care is a big part of that.
Yeah. Well, look, we do what we do for a reason.
We cook, we're a restaurant, sure.
Bricks and mortars feed people.
But the reality of it is we're here to create memories, you know, so that's all a
restaurant can do. We close at midnight.
The last customers leave, the day's done and we start again tomorrow.
So those memories are what fuels people to talk about us, to want to come back, for
us to be able to survive and thrive and continue to grow is the thoughts that people
carry around. So that's why we do what we do.
But the way we are able to do that is through the care philosophy.
So it's sort of easy for me or easier for me to get people to understand that this
one word can manifest itself right through the entire business.
You know, we teach them to care about our suppliers, whether that's a brilliant
fisherman or our guys who grow our beef for us and spend three to five years doing
that, or indeed somebody making wine or the linen company that presses our linen and
brings it to us in beautiful shape every day.
We have to look after that.
It's our responsibility.
And then we need to care about the place that we work in.
So we're very focused in, you know, Margaret looking as beautiful in 10 years as it
looks, you know, the day that we took over.
So that only happens if you nurture and care for it and look after it and clean it and
be very careful about things when you're working within it.
So that whole idea of making sure that this place becomes patina rather than destroyed
is really important.
And then caring about each other.
That was really fundamental because I started in the front of house and went back of
house to cook and did notice that there was quite a sort of a back of house and front
of house culture and pitted against each other.
So for me, when I started in restaurants, it was important that we actually bought
that together and that care for each other was really important.
So making sure that we're looking after each other and checking that we're OK and
making sure, importantly, that when we're in service, we're helping where we can, you
know, we're putting our hand up and saying we need help.
So that that whole idea of caring for each other is sort of fundamental to what makes
the restaurant work.
And then we have to care about community.
We're a small part of a larger community.
And if we are blessed by being looked after by the community, it's important that we
give back. So we've always been heavily involved in fundraising and working with
charities and and making sure that people that are less fortunate than us get as much
of our time as they possibly can.
So we encourage our team to volunteer and we encourage our team to work with us when
we're raising funds and give their time.
And they and they all do very generously, which is amazing.
And then we need to care about sustainability because the planet is such an important,
fragile thing. We live in it and we have a lot of impact on it.
But we talk about it a lot as chefs and restaurateurs, because the lifeblood of what
we do is the ingredients that we use.
So it's really important to us that we're looking after the sea, that we're looking
after the earth and the sky, and that importantly, the planet is front of mind.
So whether it's composting or making sure that we're not putting waste in the ground
or we're making sure that we're working with sustainable fishermen or farmers or guys
who treat their animals humanely, the reality is we eat them.
But there's a big difference between how they're raised and that impact on both the
animal and importantly, the planet.
So we're very focused on talking to the guys about regenerative farming, sustainable
fishing, wild-caught harvests and all the sorts of things that are really important
to make hopefully the future of the planet for our children important.
So through all that, we hope that we're caring for the customer, obviously, at the end.
But strangely, when I used to do this talk and I did a lot of town halls when I first
started with Qantas 25 years ago, people would say, oh, Neil, doesn't the customer come
But the reality of it's a bit like mise en place, you don't make the dish, you kind of
make all the parts and then you put the dish together.
So the care philosophy makes all the parts so that we're ready for the customers to walk
into the restaurant.
And then when they do, we're able to look after them because of all of that work we've
done together to make sure that we're ready and that we're ready to care for the customer.
So that one philosophy has been really fundamental to me running the businesses and getting everybody
on board and coming in the one direction because restaurants are essentially just bricks and
mortar and they're beautiful.
Sure, I mean, this is a very beautiful restaurant, but the thing that brings it to life and the
thing that makes it special is the staff and them being able to understand what I'm trying
to achieve and for them to be able to indeed bring that thing to life.
So I'm really fundamentally sort of attached to them doing the right thing because I can
lead all I want, but it's a team of people that make it happen.
I was going to ask you about that staffing because it's such a difficult thing at times,
but connection seems to be the one thing I love about the care philosophy and the fact
you've connected all things together and they're all moving in the right direction with the
How hard is it to get good staff, keep them and you know, that's like you said, they're
the lifeblood, right?
Well, look, it's hard to get good staff and it's harder at the moment after the pandemic
because a lot of visa staff have gone home, a lot of people have left the industry, but
the most important thing is to build culture.
So if you don't have culture within your restaurant, it's hard to get people to buy into the care
philosophy in the first place.
So it's sort of like leading by example.
So I've got to nurture my staff, treasure them, look after them.
I always make sure that every night after service, I walk past and thank each of them
for being involved in what hopefully was a great service.
I make sure that they know that I really appreciate what they do.
You pay them well, of course, but more importantly, you make sure the environment that they work
So family meals are really important.
You know, the staff Christmas party is really important.
All those little things that are add on to what an expectation is and making sure that
the environment is good.
So taking toxic people out, making sure people fit within the family, making sure that everybody
understands that we are indeed a family working together.
And so I always say to people, you know, there's culture in business.
You can't stop that.
You don't get a choice about that.
You just choose whether it's good culture or bad culture.
So that's really the thing that for me is paramount in this restaurant that we provide
a place where really good culture can grow.
So if we go back a little bit, your mum has given you a wonderful philosophy, your dad
is giving you these wonderful lessons and your brothers are butchers as well, so forth.
At what stage do you go, okay, I'm going to give this a crack.
This is something I could make a living out of.
I could actually be in this industry forever.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it happened to me when I was 18 and left school.
So I was going to go travelling before starting university and I decided to earn some extra
I mean, you know, it was not mutually exclusive of most people within Australia at that stage
who would use waiting and working in restaurants as an extra way of earning money to potentially
And I started in a, I did a little course actually, and then I started in a restaurant and it
I really just fell in love with it from the minute I walked into the restaurant and started
working within that environment.
And I think it's because I really enjoy people and so it's, you don't get any more people
than restaurants, right?
You're working with people, you're looking after people.
It's very, there's no other way, you know, they haven't invented the robot yet that can
So it was really kind of love at first sight.
And I spent the first seven years of my career running restaurants and being involved in
the front of house in restaurants.
But I always loved cooking.
I was always, you know, cooking dinner parties at home and reading.
Yeah, I was pretty good actually.
I mean, I've been cooking with my dad and mum since I was very young and I loved reading
So I used to buy cookbooks, a bit lame, but you know, in 1978 I bought a bunch of really
fantastic cookbooks and it was amazing actually, because it sort of, I love the ones like Great
Chefs of France and things that actually told the story of what a chef's life was all about.
Even though I was working front of house so, but I was doing things like going to the market
and buying fish because I understood fish really well because of my father and fishing
and it was really part of our sort of almost our cultural heritage about working with fish.
And then, you know, reading and reading and reading and I was sort of running restaurants,
eating in good restaurants because I was earning good money.
I was buying wine, I was drinking wine, I was tasting wine.
So I was growing that part of my sort of restaurateur experience.
I was doing the wages, I was employing people and doing training and all sorts of stuff.
So University of Wisconsin.
Yeah, that was gone.
I decided I was going to stick in the business and then at one stage I just decided I really
felt, you know, I'd always had a yearning to kind of fulfil this desire to cook professionally.
I just had by accident, I was working at, where Catalina is actually, it was the sales
at Rose Bay and I was a manager there and the chef who was there on Sundays actually
had an accident, he had a parachuting accident, he didn't die or anything, he just misstepped
the landing and he hurt his back.
So he was essentially off for a week and I called the pass on this side as the manager
on really busy things and, you know, put that together.
That was pretty straightforward and easy for me.
So I actually just went behind the pass and helped plate some food and called the service
for the various sections and I just straight away realised that I just love the energy
I went straight to Damien Pignolet, who's actually in our kitchen now, he's come across
some pretty hard times, so he's on the pension and so we give him enough work every week
to just make his life a little bit better.
But he was in a three hat restaurant called Claude's Inn with his wife Josephine and
that's why my oldest daughter's called Josephine and he said, come and cook with me.
So I started working with them and then he introduced me to Stephanie Alexander, I went
and worked with her for three months and I worked with Jenny Ferguson for a few weeks
and then Gae Billson rang and said, come and help me with Barao Waters and I sort of went
up there and then I was working front of house there and said, look, no, Gae, I really, really,
really want to cook and found myself sort of watching the guys cooking in the kitchen
thinking I can do better than that and I worked at the Bayswater Brasserie for about three
months when it first opened.
It was just mental, I mean, literally 350 people walked in the first night and there's
about five of us in the kitchen, it was just crazy and we were having breakfast, lunch
and dinner then, so it was just relentless and you were working from seven in the morning
to midnight every day and at that time, an old girlfriend of mine was working at a place
called Simpson's, Peter Simpson who used to own Rogues originally, Peter died quite some
time ago but she was working in the city and she said, I'm working with Judy McMahon and
her and Michael, they used to work at Barao, they've just bought a place called Barron
Joey House at Palm Beach and they're looking for a chef and I'd really only been cooking
for a year but I sort of had these kind of grand plans for my life.
You're confident?
Yeah, probably overconfident, for no good reason, so I jumped on my motorbike, drove
up to meet Michael at sort of midday at Barron Joey, well not at Barron Joey House, it was
actually at his place, he lived on Palm Beach Road.
It's not a bad little drive up on your bike thinking I could do this every day, probably.
Yeah, well he sat down, opened a bottle of Riesling, I just remember that we sat there
and drank that, we might have even started on another one and we just had great conversations
because I was 26, I really knew food, I'd worked in really great places albeit for not
very long parts of time, so I was sort of starging but I'd been a manager and I understood
wine and we were talking about wine together and I guess we just hit it off so he foolishly
gave me the job as the head chef at Barron Joey House in 1982, I started in November,
it was about the 3rd of November and in January Leo Schofield came up and did a story on myself
and Peter Doyle at Reflections, gave us both 17 out of 20 and said the kid's a star and
I actually never looked back from there, so that was the start and then I went on to do
Blue Water Grill and then I opened Rockpool in 1989 and went on to open the other restaurants
through the 90s and early 2000, 2006 Rockpool Bar and Grill Spice Temple and then sold the
business and I'm still a shareholder in the Rockpool dining group but then came to Margaret.
And you can just see how happy you are, you know, you're just content.
Yeah, well I'm getting to create my own culture again and that's really gratifying and so
all the responsibility for everything that happens here every day is on my shoulders
and I was my own boss with some partners since 1983 so it was a little bit more difficult
when I did sell and had to answer to people so maybe I'm just not a really good employee.
Yeah, better as the boss.
I want to talk to you about Qantas because for a lot of people, you know, sitting in
those comfy Qantas seats and looking up and seeing you there and then looking at the menu
and so forth, how did that come about, that whole you, you know, cooking the food or creating
the food for Qantas?
Well, Jeff Dixon was in for dinner last night at Margaret actually and so Jeff approached
me in 1997 to do the food for, well, he actually approached me and said, we're getting some
really brilliant new hardware but I've got to fix the software.
So the hardware was beautiful new reclining first class seats which were collaboration
with British Airways on their fully flat bed, first one in existence.
And so we were going to launch that in November 97 and so in May 97 he asked if I'd come
on board and do some work with them.
And sort of after I walked through some of the things they want me to do and so forth,
I kind of rang him and said, look, you know, you've just got such a great brand.
I think Roppel is an awesome brand.
I've spent the last 10 years building it and I don't think there's any value in us getting
together if we're not going to do it properly.
And so, you know, about three days later I got a phone call.
He'd actually heard me speak about service at a tourism task force and I think he realized
how focused I was about the entire experience and I'd talked about what we had to do coming
up to the Olympics and from a service perspective how right we had to get it to showcase how
great Sydney is and how brilliant Australia is.
So he said to me, what do you mean by I've got to do, you know, we've got to do it right?
And I said, well, look, it would require me to have staff.
I want to do the whole thing.
I don't want to do a dish on the menu.
You know, I'd like to do the whole premium over time and he said, well, you know, let's
So he signed me up and then after sort of six months, he said, I want you to spend more
time in the business.
So how much do I have to pay you?
So that contract grew into something, you know, quite large and I had 12 people working
on it just before the pandemic and we're back to five now.
I think we'll probably get to about seven, but it won't be ever quite as big because
Qantas isn't going to be quite as large as what it was, but it's very effective and really
ready for anything.
Now, the business itself is really brilliantly structured.
The management team's amazing under Alan and guys and so being involved there and being
there for 25 years is incredible.
So we've been there for sort of a quarter of Qantas's life, which is really quite extraordinary
and I feel like, you know, I say to people, it was kind of like somebody saying, oh, would
you like to play for the Wallabies, you know, so because there's only one Qantas and I'm
since I was born in 1957, so Qantas to me is the most iconic Australian brand.
I feel like all Australians own it and it belongs to us and I think in a sense, you
know, the spirit of Australia would be nothing without Qantas.
So I agree when you when you walk on one of their planes, I feel like I'm home already
no matter where I am in the world and even more so when I was younger, you know, there'd
be a bunch of surfies from Bondi with the old Dali Telegraph from the day before that
they flew up with into LA and you jump on the plane and they could tell you about the
sports scores or you just felt like you were back in Australia as soon as you put foot
Yeah, no, definitely and it's a great, it's just so fantastic to have people believe in
you so much and so from Jeff to Alan and the entire management team, a lot of celebrity
chefs, whatever you want to call them, will work with airlines producing a dish and going
and doing the PR and all that sort of stuff and but, you know, we do 650, 700 dishes a
year, you know, full-time staff working within the environment, me talking to Alan, sitting
in his office, having dinner with him, traveling with him, the rest of the management team
as well, we're really, really tight.
So to be able to be, I suppose, listened to is really gratifying. I do actually think
it's the strength of Qantas. We're all very much sort of allowed to bring our creative
space to the airline and they make it work within their environment rather than, I do
see a lot of corporate people who ask for guidance but they don't really ever take it.
I've been involved with one big business that was like that and you just get tired of beating
your head up against a brick wall.
And you sound like the type of guy, if they're not going to do that, once you agree on something,
you're all in. And once you're all in, then they've got to play their part. If not, you'll
Well, there's no point in, you know, lending yourself to something that is only doing
lip service to it. I kind of have this idea where I kind of try to draw a circle around
my life and I think about all the things that are important to me and what my kind of life
stands for and the values that I have. And then I only really measure everything that
I'm asked to do by does it fit within that realm. And if it does, I'm usually, and I
feel like there is a relationship there between the people that are involved because that's
really important. Because at the end of the day, money is not the driving force. It's really
making sure that you're working with people that you enjoy working with, people that you
believe in, things that you can actually say, I wholeheartedly believe that this is a great
product, a great idea, a great thing to be involved in that it's so there's brand synergies.
But more importantly, that again, we have this mutual respect for each other. And so I kind of
draw that circle. And if the things don't fit wholly within that, I just say no all the time.
And I get asked to do a lot of stuff. So for me, you know, you've got to have that community
angle aspect. You've got to be sustainable. You've got to be quite pure in the thoughts about what
you do and where you fit within the industry that you're involved in. I mean, some of one
of the things is I work really closely with, say, Cobham Estate, which is a really fantastic
Australian oil. And they work us here at Margaret. And I do that because I honestly believe it's one
of the great oils in the world. And I work really closely with Copper Tree Farms, which is an amazing
butter that we've produced together, which I honestly truly believe, again, is one of the
great butters in the world. And it's Australian. So they're the sorts of things that fit within my
realm. But I don't just kind of, you know, lend my name to these guys. I actually
work to make them better, strive to work with them to get people to understand what they are
and to get them to understand that they are world-class products. So that's-
If you put your name on it, it's properly put your name on it.
It's actually real. Yeah.
It's not just a rubber stamp.
No, no. I'm involved in making production, selection. Yeah. I'm not really interested
in doing something that is just, you know, Perry's out there and he's got some pulling power. So
yeah, let's stick his name on it. So that's not-
I love that. Yeah. I can just tell by talking to you for this first 20 minutes that you're all in
and whatever you say, you believe it. And I love that about you.
When did chefs become rock stars? Like, because it happened, didn't it? I mean, we've got shows
that are number one in Australia, you know, millions of people watching it and so forth.
And I've met a few and they're all ripper blokes and girls, but a lot of blokes in particular.
Why do you think you become rock stars?
Look, it's really interesting because, you know, even when I first started Baron Joey
House, there was that sort of movement going, but it certainly gained absolute
accelerations. You said through the 21st century where television, I mean,
magazines were probably the beginning. Televisions picked it up and run with it.
Certainly a celebrity chef, you know, Australia has been driven by, you know,
first Europe and then America driving celebrity. I mean, I always say,
if someone says you're a celebrity chef, I always say, I work for a living. So not really.
So yeah, you know, but I think it's really interesting. I think where one of the things
that if you're going to have that, you've got to use your voice to make sure you get as much
out of that as you possibly can. And when I say that, I'm often very disappointed with a lot of
my colleagues and peers who in times that it's important to say something, don't. And I don't
know whether they're afraid that if they speak up and ask the government to do the right thing,
that I have a black mark put against them. Or if they say something that might alienate one of
their customers. So like when I'm talking about clarity around the health orders, when we open
up and we were talking about vaccines versus anti-vaccine, you know, I felt I had to actually
come out and say from a restaurateur's point of view to the government, we need real clarity
around this and we have to be backed by a health order because otherwise you're asking us to be
the police and it's going to be really impossible. And more importantly, I don't want other
restaurateurs to think I'm not bound by health orders. So of course I'll have my unvaccinated
mates in because you can see what we've done by stepping through this really carefully. But that
talking about, you know, when I started Hope Delivery about the government indeed making sure
that they supported visa staff through JobKeeper because we needed these people when we restarted
the industry. And then I turned into a charity that helped feed them. Things like I felt really
compelled when we had the same-sex marriage debate. It's a basic human right. I mean,
I think about my kids, what I try to say to them when they finish working here,
I don't want them to be better cooks and better managers and better waiters. I want them to be
better people because I want them to think about politics and the environment and human rights and
how we live together and work together and, you know, how we help each other. So I often get
really disappointed that people don't use their power that they do have to, you know, get the
government to think about things because they do listen to people like us and they know that we've
got a lot of people, you know, whether it's on Instagram or whether, you know, when they see us
in the paper they believe in what we say or the newspaper or the radio or whatever. So I do get
quite, you know, disappointed that some celebrity chefs are quite hollow and they don't really stand
for anything and they don't actually come out and talk about what they stand for. So that disappoints
me about celebrity. But getting back to that, that's a complete tangent to where I was. But
getting back to that situation is like, it is really quite crazy. I mean, cooking is a craft,
you know, we're basically working with our hands. It's really a kind of nice laboring job.
So that's what it is, you know, and you get to go into the kitchen every day and work with your
hands and taste and cook and serve people and really importantly, hopefully give them joy,
which is a really important part of what hospitality is all about. So how that became sort of part of
people really looking at chefs as if they're all-knowing and all-powerful and all-beings
is just beyond me really. I'm pleased that it's like that because it does give me the power to
talk about things that I'm passionate about. So that's one positive, but I do scratch my
head sometimes about where people have gotten to over time. How can you stay as fit? I mean,
you said you were born in 57, was it? 1957, yeah. So you're in your 60s. You look fantastic.
Thank you. How are you not the size of a house? Look, I, you know, and I talk about a lot of
my books, I kind of preach a lot about balance. So I think balance is important in everything
in life, but no more so in diet. So I really try to sort of eat sustainably. I try to have
a really balanced diet between, you know, I eat a lot of vegetables, I eat a lot of seafood,
I eat a bit of meat. I love it, but I don't eat it all the time. I exercise a fair bit. I'm
more working a lot. On your feet? Oh, my feet a lot. I'm walking a lot. So I do a lot of natural
exercise. I think I'm kind of genetically sort of blessed as well. I've always sort of maintained
a reasonable body weight and I've got, you know, reasonable skin. And I do work with Lamare actually,
who I've looked for the last 15 years of going to give me skin products and they're awesome.
Yeah, it looks like. And I always sort of was one of those people when I was younger,
I just tried to look after my skin. I tried to keep healthy. You know, I didn't want to get my
hair cut, use good shampoo. Hey, can I just have one second? Yeah, of course. Good to see all the
fish coming in. Just quickly interrupting the episode to say a very big thank you to the sponsor
of this podcast and that is Sure and Partners Financial Services. Sure and Partners are an
Australian investment and wealth management firm who manage over $28 billion of assets under advice.
With seven offices across Australia, Sure and Partners act for and on behalf of individuals,
institutions, corporates and charities. For more info, you can check out their website at
sureandpartners.com.au. That's S-H-A-W for sure. Sure and Partners Financial Services,
your partners in building and preserving wealth. Now let's get back into the episode.
So Neil, you were talking about, you know, all the business stuff that you do. You're a chef,
you do cookbooks, Qantas. How do you balance your life up to be a good hubby, a good father? How's
that part of your world work? Well, I've made them all work in the restaurant so they can see me.
You know, my wife calls the pass at lunchtime and dinner. My youngest 15 year old says that
she's an orphan, but she and Macy, the 17 year old are coming in and polishing and so forth.
And my daughter, my oldest daughter, Josephine runs the reservations and the front desk. So
look, this is very much a family business and you know, it's really weird. I've spent like 40 years
of my life building my career, building restaurant empire, traveling all around the country, opening
restaurants in Perth and Melbourne and Sydney. And I finally realized that actually what I want to do
is just own one restaurant that I'm responsible for. And I'm in every day with my amazing team
and that's Margaret and my family very much fits into that. I'm opening a really awesome bakery with
two brilliant young people, Mike and Mia Russell from Baker Blue next door. My long-term wine director,
Richard and I have just sort of formed a company where we're importing wines into Australia. We're
going to sell Australian and imported wines in a wine shop that we're doing together. Is that all
going to be in and around Margaret here? That's all, yeah. That's just over here at number two
Cooper Street. And then I'm opening a small bar with a really great mate of mine who runs Dante,
who owns Dante in New York, which was number one bar in the world the year before last,
number two last year, number 10 three years ago. And he started the bar program at Rockpool and
Spice Temple with me in the GFC times of 2009. So I've made quite a bit of money and out of
restaurants. So I kind of feel that one, this is my base and my family here. So my family
live here, work here and hopefully come to, you know, have it one day whenever I'm here or not
here. And then I want to give some other guys who I really believe in opportunities. So
that's what the bakery's about and that's what the bar's about. That's what the wine shop's about
because I've got the financial stability to be able to make that happen for those guys and to give
them their chance in life. Yeah, that's sort of where I'm at, but I kind of call it, I call it my
retirement, but I'm working about 80 hours a week. So I don't know where that fits in, but I'm
incredibly happy and where I've arrived in my life. And I've probably knocked back three really big
projects in the last three months that Neil Perry five or 10 years ago would have jumped at. And
the kind of post-pandemic Neil Perry is really happy with where he is in his life. Yeah, my
family are just awesome. They're just supporting me so much into this business. It's incredible.
I love the fact you've got them all working with you as well now. It's really good. If you can't
get home, bring them to work. Exactly. Exactly. Could I ask you some questions around other
restaurants in the world? Like when you go to the places you love to go to, whether it's New York
or London, Rome, Tokyo, do you go going, oh, I'm going to have three nights in Tokyo. I'm going to
go here, here and here, or are you a street guy? Are you a go and get a Macca's every now and again?
No, I don't go get a McDonald's. I get a good burger, but none of McDonald's. No, I generally
plan a fair bit, but then leave enough space to be able to investigate new things and drop
into things that people, I know people in all of those places and chefs and restaurateurs and food
writers and so I kind of blame them for where I should be dropping in and having the street
food or the bowl of noodles or whatever, but I'm sort of a creature of habit as well. I love great
restaurants that stay and are great for a really long period of time. So if I was to go to San
Francisco, for instance, my fine dining thing would be to go up to the French Laundry and see
my great mate Thomas Keller, who I love so much and that restaurant is just unbelievable. But then
drop into San Fran and go to the original sustainable restaurant, which is Alice Waters
Shape & Ease. She's been doing it for 45 years or something like that, 1971 it might have been,
so maybe it's 50 years. Yeah, it is actually. So she's been talking about farm to table for
50 years. She's the head of the game. Yeah, she's the game. I always love eating there and I go to
Cafe Zuni where I love. Judy Rogers is no longer alive, but I remember interviewing her in the
early 90s and eating in her restaurant when I went there and I've been going there every
time I go to San Francisco since 1990 and every time I've had the most beautiful
meal. The same with Quince and Catania in San Fran. In London, I always go to the River Cafe.
I just couldn't go to London without going to the River Cafe because I love Rose and Ruth and
Rose sadly passed away, but Ruth's just amazing and her team and beautiful produce cooked
beautifully. I mean, when I talk to the tables here at Margaret, I just say we use the best
produce in the country and we truly do. A lot of people say that, but we actually do. Every piece
of fish comes from a fisherman that we know and we were talking to and he tells us what he's bringing
off his boat and it flies here and we drive through and kisses the grill and every piece of meat we
know flies to the farms who grow them. I basically say we just take the best produce in Australia and
try not to fuck it up. We talk about what we can take out of a dish, not what we can put into it.
That's our style, Richard and myself. That works really well for us. I've built a lifetime of
reputation on that. I'm never going to change. You never are. I had a lovely meal with Jaco
at the French Laundry for our 50th birthday. There was about 15 of us and we all came in from
different parts of the world and we went to LA initially and then we went down to San Francisco
and went to the French Laundry. So I'm a bit of a fussy eater. I'm like, give me a cheese on toast
or give me a well done steak with mashed potato. I'm pretty easy. So Thomas comes out with this and
he comes out and of course he greets Jaco. I'm sure he doesn't do this with all tables, but we had that
sort of a big room out to the garden and the guy took the champagne off with the Samoyed sword,
all that stuff. I'm sitting there and all these little bits of meal are coming and they all look
beautiful and stuff, but I'm a bit of a heathen. So Jaco says to him, look, I've got a bloke here.
He's my best mate. I've known him for 45 years, but he's hopeless on the teeth. He just likes what
he likes. So Thomas goes, what would you actually like? And I said, what I'd really love is some
cheese on toast with Worcester sauce and some donuts. I don't know why I felt that, but that's
what I felt like. He laughs it off. Half an hour later, this cheese on toast arrives and it is the
finest cheese on toast. It's cheese on the outside as well as the inside. And he's made like a
Branston pickle or someone's made it up for him. And then about 45 minutes, like a tower of mini
cinnamon donuts arrived. And he came out and he sat with us and we had a scotch and we lit up a
cigar and we all shared the cigar pre-COVID. And he said, I'm just going to have the rest of the
afternoon off. And he sat with us out in that garden and it was, I mean, I'm glad I didn't have
to pay the bill. But I think everyone's got to have an experience like that.
Yeah, he's one of the most generous people. He and I have been great friends for a long time. We
sort of met each other at the top 50 restaurants in the world. And then I sort of hatched a plan
with Qantas to bring he and Hissen out to do charity work with Starlights. We did the ultimate
dinner, but we ended up doing seven of them together. So we spent a lot of time in Australia
together, but also I spent a lot of time with him in New York and the laundry. And every time
I've been, you know, the sense of generosity is amazing. I went to the, say I was in
my business partner's 60th, that's 10 years ago. And I said to him, we really love to come. She's
just oddly in New York at the same time as myself and Karen and Catherine, my two chefs, used to
work at Rockpool and my beautiful daughter, Josephine, who was at that time 17. So I think
they forgot about that and just, a couple of wines. Yeah, just a magnum of Cristal arrives.
And you know, we have this incredible dinner that lasted so many hours of amazing wine. And then,
you know, asked for the bill, this beautiful handwritten note with thank you and happy birthday
from Thomas. But he's just so generous and so many times he's done that. I did my 60th birthday with
him in the French laundries. I think you're probably as generous as he is. So it works both
ways. And the fact it's good to have you both in each other's lives. Oh, absolutely. So Neil,
would you send Emil back? Like are you that sort of guy? No, no, no, I wouldn't do that. You know,
I just go to a restaurant to relax and enjoy. So if I don't really love something, I just wouldn't
eat it. So yeah, no, I'm not the sort of person who jumps up and down. And I wouldn't want to sort
of put that on the poor person in the kitchen. And it's just not in my nature to be like that.
I'm sort of more of a nurturing person. Most definitely if I really enjoy something, I go and
I tell people that I really loved it and try and make sure that they know that I really appreciate
the effort that they put in. Who inspires you in this world? I really love from a chef's point of
view, people like Thomas Keller, you know, people like Ruth Rogers, who's had the River Cafe for
35 years and still there. You know, I still go there for lunch or dinner and see her bouncing
around the kitchen and having that one single focus of making that restaurant great. I love
that sort of thing. You know, I've really loved people like Obama. I thought, you know, it was
just such a shame that the Senate made him such a lame president because he had so many great
ideas. And then Trump came in and, you know, I mean, to pull apart things like Obamacare,
you know, to see America during the pandemic rushing to try and get a national health system
because the richest country in the world doesn't really have a national health system.
Make sure you realize how lucky we are in Australia for all the things that we
do have. So yeah, people like that are really inspiring who really I think are incredibly
genuine and absolutely do things for the right reason. He was president because he wanted to
make people's lives better, the world a better place. You know, you get people like Trump,
I'm not actually sure why he wanted to be president, but he thought it was the world's
biggest reality TV show, I guess. Yes. Do you cook at home? Not the at home very much by the
sans of your work ethic, but do you like that or do you like cooking at home? Does your wife cook
as well? Yeah, Sam cooks at home. You know, the girls don't show a lot of interesting cooking.
I've tried a few times and I often say to them, you know, you guys are going to leave home and
starve to death. But these days, I suppose they all know, you know, how to dial Ibarizzo or whatever
it is. Yeah, no, Sam's really lovely cook. We cook together and it really is, you know, nice to
again, eat beautiful produce and eat at home and be relaxed and open a great bottle of wine. I mean,
I love restaurants and I love eating out, but often I'll sort of go, you know, I can actually
probably cook something better myself or it's just simpler, you know, and it's easier that there
might not be my favorite restaurant open on a Monday or, you know, whatever. So it's easy for
me to make a great sandwich or a roast of chuck or stir fry something. Do you always get a seat
at the restaurants you want to go to? Do you know, I had a fun, if there's a funny experience,
I met a guy called Neil Perry at Rockpool Bar and Grill about five years ago and he said to me,
you know what, it's the best cooking is Neil Perry because I always get the best seat in the house.
Never get the sorry sir, no room tonight. No. So generally speaking, I'm a really terrible
booker at restaurants. Like I never think too far ahead. So I am lucky that I can text mates and
go, can I come in for dinner tonight? They'll sort something out for you. What would be your
favorite? Like I love a sandwich. You mentioned the sandwich before, plus I'm a dessert guy.
You wouldn't know it for looking at me, but I like the simple stuff. Like just a really good
club sandwich in New York, like a nice vanilla cheesecake or something, not too much. Doesn't
have to be too big, just a little taste at the end of something. What would be your favorite?
Look, it's funny because I love sandwiches, right? So I just wrote a cookbook. Everything I
love to cook just came out. There are 23 sandwiches in the first chapter.
So yeah, there were supposed to be three and I got to about 25 and we took a couple out. Yeah,
because at home and I'm quite famous on Instagram for the sandwiches I put up there. So to me,
it's one of the reasons why I'm getting involved in a bakery. I love bread. So sandwiches are
really, to me, they're the perfect food if you're putting great ingredients in them and you've got
great bread. It's layering up beautiful single flavors that come together to make something
really incredible. And the other thing I love is noodles or pasta. So ramen or stir fried noodles
or indeed, one of the pastas I cook at home for Sam a lot is we just do prawns,
pistachio and chili and spaghetti. So it's a very Sicilian sort of style dish with olive oil. But
you're really thinking a lot about the pasta itself, but the prawns and it's such a great
flavor and the nuts. And so yeah, but ramen I love. So I love Asian food. So I eat a lot of
noodles and stir fries. I haven't got a lot of time left with you. So I want to do a few quick
fire questions. The most famous person that you've cooked for and have you felt under those
conditions under pressure or do you always feel like, you know, you've got it under control,
but you're human at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, look, I've cooked for
heaps of people, you know, I know you really well. So I've cooked for him lots of times,
but, you know, he's come around to home and I'll cook for him. And he's easy because he's
always angry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Especially if he's not on his sort of chicken,
chicken diet, Wolverine diet. But yeah, look, I know he's politicians and heaps of famous stars
and stuff. And I never, I just sort of really try and focus on cooking the best I can every day,
doing the best I can. And I always think that's enough. So I mean, you know, you get excited
about things. I remember when Michael Hutchins bought Elmick Furson in one time when she was
really young in Rockport, right back in the early nineties, because I knew him reasonably well and
to go to the studio and they were making albums and stuff. So, so I get on Chinatown eating with
them. And yeah, she was just so phenomenally beautiful and mainly Christians. You know,
you kind of get nervous around women like that. Not politicians or industrialists.
Yeah, yeah. What about a lazy Susan? I do love a meal with a lazy Susan. I love a good Chinese
food. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I love a lazy Susan. Like, you know, we spend our life kind of,
you know, one of the reasons the golden century was so famous is Tets and I used to go there all
the time. And so everyone who was involved in food would always want to be at the golden century
after work and stuff. And there's nothing more fun than kind of putting in a big Friday or Saturday.
And you kind of get the customers out and clean down the kitchen and you get to the century and
it's sort of like one o'clock in the morning and you order all the food and it hits the table.
You're drinking beer and, you know, talking about the week. There's a sense of family and
camaraderie that's really extraordinary. And that really revolves around that lazy Susan and cold
beer. Yeah. You've done so much in this world. You know, you really have. If you look down,
and I've done this, written down all the stuff that you've done from awards through to
the restaurants and the empire that you've created. If you stopped it all now,
what would be the thing that you're most proud of?
I think, you know, there's a couple of things that one would be getting in the top 50 restaurants
in the world without any understanding of how it happened or what was going on,
because the whole philosophy is about creating memories. So they asked 400 people around the
world to name five great restaurant experiences from one to five. So enough people around the
world said rock, roll to put us in the number four in the world in the top 50 restaurants. So
to me, our team had done mission accomplished. You know, we'd created great memories.
And then some of the really crazy things like to be on a stamp, you know, I mean, you know,
not many Australians have been on stamps, but to be selected when they did the last and the stamps,
the culinary version of that. And the other thing I thought was, you know, when I got my AM was
really interesting, it's like you start cooking and you kind of expect awards to come and you've
got restaurants and you're putting yourself out there to be critiqued and awarded. And so all of
those things, you know, are always gratefully accepted. But, you know, you have an expectation
of you're putting yourself out there and utilize those to get your staff to motivate and so forth
and benchmark against other restaurants. But when government sort of says to you, you've done a lot
for your industry and the community, and that really comes from left field and you don't really
think about, you know, that ever happening and it happens. It's really actually quite gratifying.
And I think that's one of my most favourite things that have happened to me in my career.
That's beautiful. Last five questions and they're real quick ones. And the last one is
probably the most important one for you because it's your heart and your charity. And we would
like to give $10,000 through Earl and Al at Shore and Partners. Your favourite holiday destination?
Sounds great. Food's amazing there.
Is everything worked out with food in your eyes when you think about it?
Yeah, I don't think about surfing trips like Lane would.
Yeah. Your favourite quote or something that you live your life by, like a thought?
Yeah, I think, you know, the cornerstone of good cooking is to source the finest produce. And then
I've been saying that ever since I started Rockpool and it's the foundation of Margaret.
Your favourite movie?
Yeah, great flick. Have you seen The New Bond?
No, you know, why don't I love him as Bond? Like, I just thought,
matter of fact, really underrated, but I thought the second one was Casino Royale and then
Quantum of Solace. I actually thought that was the best Bond movie and then Skyfall came along,
but I'm, you know, Quantum of Solace was like, I just thought he was really intense in that,
particularly at the end. But anyway.
Great Bond. Yeah, yeah, the best Bond.
Favourite book? Are you a reader?
Yeah, I've got nearly 3000 cookbooks, so I'm tragic on cookbooks and most of them are not
just, a lot of them are not just recipes, fundamentally how that chef thinks or whatever,
but I'd have to go back to say Great Chefs of France. I probably read it. I've had it since
1978 and I probably skim through it and get back into it, you know, once every five years.
That sort of kickstarted the passion when you were a teenager with your mum and dad.
And favourite charity, which is obviously such an important thing for you and the reason behind it
and what will $10,000 from Shore and Partners do for the charity?
Well, I had Hope Delivery. I mean, I started it in 2020. It started at the fundamental core of it
to feed visa staff who had no support from the government and who were staying in Australia.
It then moved on to work through a whole lot of other areas through refugees, women and children,
shelters, new shelters, and now is working very strongly with Oz Harvest in the Indigenous space
as well and we hope to grow that more in the Indigenous space as well in the coming year as
we get more control of it. And that is really important to me because it's about nourishment,
right? And what we're trying to do in the Indigenous space and other spaces is make sure that
people always have a meal and that fundamentally helps you process better, think better, helps kids
function better at school, helps them change their life really because they can get higher
education. They can change things that they're doing. So that $10,000 will be 5,000 meals.
Wow. So 5,000 meals that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
Look, it's been an absolute pleasure. The restaurant is starting to get louder.
Yeah, it's buzzing.
I know what you mean now why you would feel so excited about being a part of it. Now this is
your baby named after your gorgeous mum.
It is, with my family working in it.
Congratulations on being you, mate, and thanks for your time today.
That was Neil Perry and what I loved about that was that Neil has decided to go down his own path
and his own unique way and he's made such a wonderful success of himself that you just
imagine if you got involved with him, you know you're involved with good people. The other thing is
that I had a cup of tea and a bit of cake at Margaret when we did the interview and I tell
you it was absolutely spectacular and it was nice to get it for free too. I don't mind a freebie.
Coming up next on Not an Overnight Success is Billy Shaw.
Billy previously led a life in American politics as a senatorial and presidential campaign
chief of staff. He is now a founder and executive chair of Share Earth Strength,
a parent organisation for the No Kid Hungry campaign.
A big thank you to Shaw and Partners Financial Services who have generously supported this
podcast and also donated $10,000 to the charity of choice of each of our guests
to thank them for their time. Shaw and Partners are an Australian investment and wealth management
firm who manage over $28 billion of assets under advice. With seven offices around Australia,
Shaw and Partners act for and on behalf of individuals, institutions, corporates and
charities. For more info you can check out their website at shawandpartners.com.au.
That's S-H-A-W for Shaw. Shaw and Partners Financial Services,
your partners in building and preserving wealth.