In theory, Saint Peter at the Grand National Hotel is not a new restaurant. To owners Josh and Julie Niland, their new spacious Paddington premises is more or less business as usual: presenting the ocean’s finest fish – from cheek to eye, from scale to skeleton – in some of the most creative dishes you’ll find anywhere on the globe. To diners, the new enterprise is a supercharged take on the original Saint Peter. The dining room is no longer a squishy counter, but instead a luxuriant texture-mélange of rich leathers, Ken Done art and a hanging garden of dried kelp.
The charming service team operates not unlike a school of fish – gliding in precise harmony from the kitchen to table and back again. And the food, although never wavering from its whole-fish, no-waste philosophy, has taken on a new artistry: with dishes inspired by the playful polka dots of Yayoi Kusama and the concentric circles of Kandinsky.
The entire team also seems to operate with a renewed sense of elevation and maturity befitting their grand new home: from the dynamic partnership of head chef Joe Greenwood and head of development Kieran Bellerby, to sommelier Houston Barakat manning the wines, and Sam Cocks on the cocktails, while restaurant manager Monique Guest brings excellence to the floor.
There are now two additional ways to access the world of Saint Peter, just footsteps from the restaurant’s door. There’s the adjacent bar, where you can order a drippy, finger-licking tuna cheeseburger or a diminutive version of the restaurant’s signature dish: pale pink petals of blue mackerel, bathed in Gordal olive oil brine, alongside an Oyster Shell Martini. And upstairs are 14 grand hotel rooms, designed by Studio Aquilo, where you can sleep, so to speak, with the fishes, before indulging in what might be the world’s most extravagant hotel breakfast (the marron scrambled eggs are the best reason to get out of bed anywhere in the city).
But while all of the new trappings and trimmings sound seductive on their own, there remains one unyielding element of the Saint Peter experience that has not changed: the excellence in flavour of every dish. There is intense savouriness in a not-simple-at-all amuse-bouche of fish soup with coral trout bone noodles. A John Dory liver pâté throws complex layers of deliciousness with its sweet Port and Madeira jelly. A sorbet dessert of native flavours – lemon aspen, quandong, muntries – runs your tongue along the full fruit flavour spectrum from sweet to sour.
It is, without question, the most unforgettable meal you can eat in Australia today.
To see the full list of winners in this year’s Gourmet Traveller Annual Restaurant Awards, head over here.
Past winners of the Restaurant of the Year Award
- 2024: The Agrarian Kitchen Restaurant, New Norfolk TAS
- 2023: Agnes, Brisbane QLD
- 2022: Restaurant Botanic, Adelaide SA
- 2021: Tedesca Osteria, Red Hill VIC
- 2020: Due to COVID-19, a Hospitality Honours List was introduced in lieu of Restaurant Awards
- 2019: Attica, Melbourne VIC
- 2018: Quay, Sydney NSW
- 2017: Orana, Adelaide SA
- 2016: Momofuku Seibo, Sydney NSW
- 2015: Rockpool, Sydney NSW
- 2014: Attica, Melbourne VIC
- 2013: Momofuku Seibo, Sydney NSW
- 2012: Quay, Sydney NSW
- 2011: Marque, Sydney NSW
- 2010: Cutler & Co., Melbourne VIC
- 2009: Quay, Sydney NSW
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