Neil Perry’s latest venture will be his last
Neil Perry’s latest restaurant will be his last.
The award-winning chef told the Daily Telegraph’s Karlie Rutherford that he’d like to take a few more holidays.
Perry is building his new, multi-storey restaurant on Bay St in Double Bay that will feature a Chinese restaurant, Songbird, and a speakeasy-style bar, Bobbie’s.
The four-storey venue will cost over $12 million and is just down the road from Margaret.
“I don’t really have enough money to finish this thing, but I’m going to finish it anyway,” 67-year-old Perry told Rutherford.
“It’s the last one. I don’t really ever see a point where I don’t own the restaurants, but I’d like to take a few more holidays.”
Perry has given his all to the industry with his body now battered and broken. That commitment was rewarded with an Icon Award at the World’s Best 50 Restaurants ceremony in Las Vegas two weeks ago.
These days, Perry spends most of his time at his expanding Double Bay precinct, which includes Margaret, Baker Bleu and Next Door.
Margaret, which is named for his mother, was recently named the world’s third-best steak restaurant, ahead of the restaurant he made iconic – Rockpool. It is a family affair with daughter Josephine managing the restaurant, and his other two daughters Macy and Indy, often working the floor.
“I missed out a lot with my daughters when they were little because I was travelling so much,” Perry told Rutherford.
Family is more important, given the time he spent away.
“I got on a plane every other week for probably most of their life until Covid. So it’s beautiful having this restaurant where we all work together,” he said.
“I never thought I’d love anything as much as Rockpool. But I really feel like I love this restaurant more than anything.
It is the culmination of my entire career getting to this kind of Margaret precinct and being named after my mother.
“My mum would be so proud her three grandchildren work in it. I often think about it a lot.
“She was so involved in the restaurants, loved them so much.
“She passed away in 2015, so we’ve had a while without her. Almost ten years. But I just think about her looking down at these guys being so proud. I wish she could see it.”
Perry will soon be a grandfather, with Josephine due at the end of the year with her first child with husband Michael Clift, who owns Pellegrino 2000.
And while the Double Bay precinct may be his last venture, he will remain a father figure in the industry after becoming Chair of the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association (ARCA).
“I’ve always been politically active and thinking about how I’m voting. I was brought up in a great era of Gough Whitlam winning power and voted for him in the elections of ’75. Then Paul Keating, Howard.
“You know, these guys were actually statesmen and had a vision for what the country’s going to be. Now, with the way social media works, everything’s clickbait. Politicians change decisions all the time,” Perry said of the current political climate and how the ARCA plans to lobby governments on the importance of the $64 billion hospitality industry.
Jonathan Jackson, 8th July 2024
