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The World’s 50 Best Restaurants has released its extended list – and the Sydney seafood spot Saint Peter has become the only Australian restaurant to make the cut, receiving praise for spearheading a movement.
In a tweet this week, World’s 50 Best described Josh Niland’s Saint Peter as a “ground-breaking” restaurant that “takes the great Australian seafood tradition to previously unexplored heights”.
Although Saint Peter has been ranked 98th, a mention on the long list has been unusual for an Australian restaurant in recent years. No Australian restaurants made the long list of restaurants ranked 51-100 in 2023, and Melbourne’s Gimlet was the only Australian restaurant to edge its way into the list in 2022, at 84.
Niland said when he found his restaurant was on the list he was “quite emotional”
“In the chef world [the list] is the big leagues, so it’s a wonderful thing to happen,” Niland said.
“All of us were so grateful to have any kind of leg up at a time like this when being in the restaurant industry is extremely difficult,” he said, adding that the restaurant had received an uptick in bookings since the list was announced.
Alexandra Carlton, chair of the Oceania judging panel, said that “on paper, 98th does not sound like a great showing for Australia … but there’s huge obstacles for Australian and New Zealand restaurants to get on the list”.
“It’s a huge deal that Saint Peter managed to overcome all those obstacles,” she said. “For the global food community, for people who eat professionally and other restaurants worldwide, this is just staggering.”
The restaurants that make the top 50 tend to be much more “vibrant, diverse and interesting” than traditional fine dining restaurants, she said.
Saint Peter won points for innovation, with Niland the first to cook fish with techniques typically reserved for meat.
“It’s pretty rare for a restaurant to truly spearhead a movement,” Carlton said.
“[Niland] uses every single part of the fish in his cooking … whether its eyeballs in ice cream that everyone talks about, or bones in noodles.
“He uses the most fascinating parts of the fish.”
The restaurant’s most popular dish is a salt and vinegar King George whiting cut into a “fish jigsaw puzzle” on sourdough, which Carlton described as “a dish that represents Sydney”.
A meal at Saint Peter doesn’t come cheap – the daily changing seven-course dinner tasting menu is priced at $195 per person.
“I hope in the years to come there’s more restaurants from Australia on the list because it’s ridiculous how wonderful the restaurants are here,” Niland said.
“Having travelled and eaten in different parts of the world, there’s nothing to say that we’re not on equal footing with other restaurants.”
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants will be announced on 5 June.
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