What do Cher, Frank Sinatra and Neil Perry share in common? Much like the Goddess of Pop and Ol' Blue Eyes, the revered chef and restaurateur isn't much good at sticking with retirement. In July of 2020, after nearly four decades as one of Australian dining's brightest guiding lights, Perry announced that he would be stepping down as Culinary Director of Rockpool Group and hanging up his apron for good, much to the dismay of his many foodie fans. Just over a year later, however, Perry backflipped on this supposed farewell, making his comeback in spectacular fashion with what would be the first site of his now four-venue-strong Double Bay empire. While we now know that Perry had a lot more to show Australian diners (although he insists that his recently opened martini lounge Bobbie's and the sprawling three-storey Cantonese diner Song Bird, also in Double Bay, really are the last ventures of his career), when it opened in 2021, Margaret was pitched as the chef's final swan song. Named in tribute to his mother, it would be the first restaurant launched by Perry without any outside financial backing, giving him the freedom to create a fine diner entirely of his own making — a deeply personal ode to his years in the kitchen, free from the pandering pressures of expectant business partners. The menu reads like an autobiography, showcasing the cuisines that have defined Perry's career. His love of Asian flavours is writ large with dishes like Perry's delicate signature Thai-style salad — fragrant and fresh with shreds of blue swimmer crab meat and sweet pork, the textural foil of green mango and crushed cashews, and a thrill of heat from sliced red chilli. A spicy, kimchi-inspired Korean-style tartare is another Eastern standout, with generous cubes of bigeye tuna tossed in a sweet-yet-bold gochujang sauce and finished with sesame and the bright zing of house-made pickles. Surf and turf, kissed by flame, has long been an idée fixe of Perry's previous venues, so it's little wonder that the char and complexity of woodfired cooking is another key pillar of Margaret's offering. Seafood lovers are well served with coral trout dressed with a punchy XO butter; southern garfish with an Asian tilt, spiked with yuzu and fermented green chilli; and Eastern Rock lobsters, served dressed with either a sparkling lime and sambal sauce or mornay style, with a bubbling topping of cheese and garlic. Slice into a perfectly cooked wagyu fillet or bone-in sirloin and you'll see that it's not for nothing that Margaret was declared the third-best steakhouse in the world, by the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurant rankings in 2024. While the skilled team under Perry's veteran eye are experts at achieving just the right sear and smokiness from every cut on the grill, it's also the provenance of Maraget's steaks that make them world-leading. Indeed, the relationships Perry has carefully cultivated over decades with the nation's finest producers underpin this menu's magic — the likes of small-scale, low-impact fishers Bruce Collis and Anthony Heslewood, and organic beef producers CopperTree Farms and Blackmore. With such a kaleidoscopic range of world cuisines represented, navigating Margaret's menu could seem daunting. Rather than sticking to either Asian fare or committing to the more Euro-leaning dishes, we suggest a more cohesion-be-damned approach. Perry is offering diners the chance to colour outside the lines, hopscotching from one spectrum of flavours to another within the same meal. An extensive wine list, with by-the-glass options paired upon request by the restaurant's superb sommeliers, help blur the edges, but what really brings it all together is the vision and passion of a once-in-a-generation chef displaying the full gamut of his technical powers, his understanding of what makes food great, and a love of cooking that even retirement couldn't contain. Images: Petrina Tinslay
