20 DEPARTURES TRAVEL CONSUMING PASSION Raw diced yellowfin tuna, served with sour onions, egg yolk and endive NOT MANY 10-YEAR-OLD boys have posters of chefs on their walls. But in Josh Niland’s room in Maitland, New South Wales, where he grew up, the likes of Heston Blumenthal and Aussie chefs Shannon Bennett and Justin North rubbed shoulders with his sporting heroes. An early cancer diagnosis led Niland to spend a lot of time at home during his formative years, and food played a prominent role for him, particularly his mother’s home cooking. He describes making food as “one of the most generous and kind things somebody can do for someone else”. So passionate was Niland about cuisine that he began working in a cafe at 14, eventually making his way into the kitchens of local legends Peter Doyle and Stephen Hodges – and eventually of Blumenthal himself at The Fat Duck. He opened his own eatery, Saint Peter, with wife Julie in Sydney’s chi-chi Paddington in 2016, and the accolades haven’t stopped, crescendoing this year with two James Beard awards for his first book, The Whole Fish Cook Book (Hardie Grant, 2019). As comfortable talking about revenue streams and social-media strategy as he is about the pleasures of “a fat John Dory in winter” (although his eyes light up unmistakably when he starts to talk about fish), this millennial chef is proud of his role in changing how the average Australian – and increasingly, the rest of the Western world – views, thinks about and eats fish. Widely dubbed his fin-to-gill approach, Niland sees his mission as three-pronged. “First of all, I am trying to bring a greater desirability to fish, which includes interpreting fish as meat because there is so much reverence paid to meat. Then, bringing this desirability to lesser-known species and, thirdly, to the parts of the fish that typically get thrown in the bin”, which typically averages 55 per cent of the fish, he says. Niland’s logic is hard to argue with: “If I can generate 90 per cent from one fish rather than the 45 per cent that is the accepted standard at the moment,” he explains, “then that’s one less fish I’m personally taking out of the ocean, and we are doubling its potential.” The alternative to running out of fresh fish is settling for “mediocrity” in the form of factory-farmed fish – “and there’s no Niland’s fish charcuterie THE WHOLE FISH COOKBOOK In his multi-awardwinning tome, Josh Niland considers dozens of varieties of fish – including how to source, butcher and cure them – in over 60 recipes. hardiegrant.com romance in that”, he says with a smile. It’s important for Niland that his approach isn’t seen as just environmental altruism. “From a culinary point of view, it’s about what I can achieve around creating dishes that people haven’t seen before, to generate interest, and have a legacy,” he says. His process of breaking down each fish draws on learnings from other cultures in which eating fish offal is perfectly normal, and he is aiming to bring the concept of dry-ageing fish into mainstream usage. “The minute you wash fish under a tap, you set the timer,” he explains. “We don’t use water or ice at any point, and by dry-handling fish, we get two to three additional weeks of storage, and also a potential development of flavour that hasn’t been explored before.” His approach to disseminating his fin-to-gill philosophy has been multipronged – and continues to be so now. In addition to his book, he opened an artisanal fish shop in 2018, and this year he’s introduced a 90 per cent-completed meal-delivery kit and, following a Covid-19-related temporary closure, he’s evolved his restaurant into a chic 14-seat counter dining set-up. “The immediacy of contact is a form of value and generosity,” he says of the new restaurant format. “My goal is to educate the consumer and try and diversify the kinds of fish people interact with. It’s a huge task, and we’re at the bottom of the mountain right now.” mrniland.com
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