The countdown to the release of influential chef and restaurateur Josh Niland's new book has begun.
Saint Peter: Chapter & Verse celebrates 10 years of one of the world's most acclaimed restaurants and its game-changing philosophy that redefined fish cookery.
Opened by Josh and his wife Julie in 2016, Saint Peter sits on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list.
The hardback book based on the multi-award-winning restaurant includes three first-person essays by Niland charting Saint Peter's journey from an intimate 34-seat fish restaurant on Oxford Street through to its second iteration as a 22-seat counter, and finally, the 40-seat, three-hatted restaurant and bar located at The Grand National Hotel in Sydney's Paddington.
The recipes in the book, including sea urchin crumpet, Spanish mackerel on the bone with spring beans and peas, and bar cod intestines cacio e pepe, have been captured by food photographer David Loftus.
"Saint Peter: Chapter & Verse is a record of a decade of work - not just recipes, but a new way of thinking about fish, modern craftsmanship and leadership," said Niland.
"It captures the discipline, care and clarity behind the restaurant, and the belief that every part of a fish has value. More than anything, it's an honest reflection on being in this business, shared in the hope of encouraging others."
Niland, who grew up in East Maitland and started his career at The Brewery in Newcastle, is regarded as a guru of sorts when it comes to fin-to-tail cooking and his books are eagerly read by lovers of his food and world-class chefs alike.
He holds the highest three-knife ranking on The Best Chef Awards, having received The Best Chef Innovation Award in Madrid in 2022, and was recognised as a "Game Changer" by La Liste in Paris for his approach to sustainable seafood.
Niland is also a board member of the Basque Culinary Centre, one of the most revered and forward-thinking gastronomic universities and culinary centres in the world.
If you don't already follow Niland's socials, you should. The presentation of his food is simply stunning.
His parents ran an accounting business in Maitland and Niland, a sporty child, dreamed of playing professional cricket. Then he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of eight and underwent three years of intense treatment.
Unable to play sport and often absent from school, he passed the time by watching cooking shows on television and reading recipe books.
He also started to cook for his family, and loved it. He was 12 when he decided he wanted to be a chef.
A pivotal moment in his career was meeting chef Stephen Hodges and working with him at Fish Face.
"The biggest gaping hole I could see was that half the fish that comes out of the water globally goes in the bin. And once that comes into the restaurant, then half of it goes into the bin again," he told me in 2022.
"We're working with one of the most precious, fragile food items in the world that is very finite and isn't available forever, and we continue to throw it in the bin.
"For a long time it's been put into the too-hard basket. People would tell me that no one would want to eat what I'm cooking or accept what I'm doing."
His interest in sustainability, in Saint Peter's early days, coincided with a desire to save money.
"When I opened Saint Peter and I got the first invoice for my fish and it was $5000, my first thought was that $2500 was already in the bin. It didn't make sense," Niland said.
"So an economic concern shifted into creativity: 'Well, how do I find a solution to this problem, because this problem will be re-occurring? If I want to keep buying the best product then I have to come up with a way to use all of it'.
"And then, simultaneously, hand in hand, economics and ethics started to walk together."
Saint Peter: Chapter & Verse begins with a 15-year-old Niland describing how he cleaned a "20-kilogram box of long, gnarly kipfler potatoes" with a green sponge, "trying to make each one cleaner than the last one" and telling himself over and over again, "It's worth it".
His next task, after tidying his station, was to pack away ingredients that had arrived at the restaurant and weigh those needed for a creme brulee "so the chef can teach me how to infuse cream, temper eggs, use a water bath, and caramelise the top with sugar and a blowtorch".
Niland goes on to describe repetitive daily kitchen tasks as "the unseen foundation of the restaurant world".
"You don't get the perfect roasted kipflers without scrubbing them. You don't get the silky cream and delicate toffee crunch of creme brulee without weighing out the ingredients," he writes.
"The monotony sends many young cooks out the door, their dreams sliced and diced and packed away in their first bag of kit.
"Looking back, it's clear that having a passion for food and hospitality is the easy part. Putting on that chef's uniform and tooling up with expensive knives and tools is cosplay.
"Only a simultaneously microscopic and telescopic desire will get a young chef through the hardest moments that the training for this profession will present.
"But it's worth it."
Niland's previously released books are The Whole Fish Cookbook, Take One Fish, and Fish Butchery.
Saint Peter: Chapter & Verse is out on September 1 through Hardie Grant Books, RRP $80.
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