Saint Peter Is Paddington's New Nose-to-Tail Seafood Restaurant

Josh Niland has opened Saint Peter in Paddington with an entirely fish menu. The 34 seater restaurant — which Niland has opened with his wife Julie — has been a long time coming for the 27-year-old Sydney chef, formerly of Fish Face and est. — both of which use the protein with reverence and originality.

It's a brave slant for a new restaurant, but a timely one with sustainability, farming and locality becoming hot topics in the fish food world. Niland has this front and centre of his menu serving only Australian and responsibly-sourced swimmers. "The one thing I've tried to do is buy all Australian fish, because it's really underutilised," says Niland. The other focus is on lesser-known species like herring and small toothed flounder. Needless to say, you won't find any Atlantic salmon here, folks.

And with fish at the centre of the menu, he's not being too fussy with their garnishes. Niland is cooking vegetables whole with unique cooking methods — one of which is wrapping a whole cabbage in paperbark and roasting it for four hours in the oven. Diners can watch the cabbage cooking as they walk in, and then eat it served with a piece of wild mulloway. He's also serving up nine-day aged wild kingfish with celeriac and a 1.2-kilogram Cleveland Bay halibut studded with 40 cloves of garlic.

Cleveland Bay Halibut for 2, Forty Cloves of Garlic & Native Thyme @saintpeterpaddo

A photo posted by josh niland (@mrniland) on Sep 4, 2016 at 7:28am PDT

He's already becoming known for his dry-ageing techniques and his and fish offal, which is part of a fish equivalent of 'nose to tail' eating. Niland might just be the new Henderson in this market — making people less squeamish about anything other than the fillet can only be a good thing with this valuable natural product. "If you get a mulloway that's 13 kilos in there's a few kilos of great product that usually gets the thrown in the bin, like the liver, scales and head," says Niland. "I'm really making the most out of these parts." Whatever the fish part, he hopes punters will have enough trust in him to know he'll cook it well — and perhaps even "change their minds about a few species".

Saint Peter is doing a fishy brunch menu too with the sea urchin crumpet looking like a front runner for signature dish, also crab omelettes and sardines from Yamba on toast, with batch brew filter coffee from Artificer and teas from The Berry Tea Shop.

Strong ethos and simple approach appears to be the key theme here, which is echoed by the interiors (clean and bright,) the wine list (short, all Aussie, mostly white) and the desserts (only tarts, like lemon or chocolate and artichoke). And we like it.

Saint Peter is now open at 362 Oxford Street, Paddington. For more info, visit saintpeter.com.au.

Image: Josh Niland via Instagram.