Saint Peter is a fine dining restaurant in Sydney that specializes in fish. Saint Peter is another name for the fish also know as John Dory. All the dishes include fish, even the dessert. The restaurant prides itself for using 90% of the fish, rather than the usual 50%. The innards, bones, and secondary cuts such as cheeks are also used, not just the fillets. The provenance of each fish is noted on the menu. There is a fixed tasting menu (9 courses) for AU$ 275 and the beverage pairing is AU$ 200.

From the dining room you have a great view of the open kitchen with a charcoal fire.

The first course is a fragrant coral trout bone noodle soup. The noodles in the soup are made from the bones of the coral trout, which have been processed in a kind of flour. The stock has a very nice full flavor.

The pairing starts with a Pinot Blanc (Weisser Burgunder) from Pfalz, Germany, and a red vermouth produced in Melbourne.

The second course is seven different types of fish charcuterie as well as a John Dory liver paté tart. The charcuterie includes fish chorizo and fish mortadella, and it is all delicious and pairs very well with the Pinot Blanc. The liver paté tart pairs very well with the vermouth.

The next wine is a Savagnin from King Valley, Victoria, Australia. It is like an Australia version of Arbois, but (luckily) less acidic and less oxidized.

This was an excellent pairing for the blue mackerel with olive brine and extra virgin olive oil, sourdough bread, and cultured butter. The blue mackerel was served raw and impeccably fresh. We were instructed to first dip the bread in the dressing and then to eat it with the fish and the butter. Delicious.

The next wine was a Rosé from Burgundy (so obviously Pinot Noir), from a producer that is famous for his Premier Cru and Grand Cru Chardonnay wines from the Côte de Beaune in France. The enthusiastic sommelier was very proud to be able to present this wine as part of the wine pairing.

The next dish was ‘coal kissed’ bonito with grilled cherries, radicchio, coffee, and vanilla. A strong-flavored dish and a good pairing with the rosé, except for the cherries. The sweetness of the cherries provide a nice counter to the bitterness of the radicchio, but it kills the wine. And so I enjoyed the wine with the fish and radicchio, and saved the cherries for last. The bonito was almost raw and very tender.

The next wine was a Chardonnay from a winery in the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia that I visited last year.

The wine was a bit crisp for the John Dory with cucumber, bull kelp, and rock oyster butter. A more creamy Chardonnay would have been a better pairing. I’m not sure if it was because of the wine pairing, but this was my least favorite dish of the menu.

We continued with another wine that I had tasted for the first time during the trip to Australia last year, the Tolpuddle Pinot Noir from Tasmania. An excellent Pinot Noir with great balance, complexity, and texture.

It was a good pairing for the 12 day dry aged swordfish with summer vegetables, black garlic, and macadamia. A delicious and wonderful dish with a lot of flavor. A hefty Chardonnay may have been even better, but Australia doesn’t really produce such heavy Chardonnays anymore.

Some kind of cocktail was served with the palate cleanser…

…which was sorbet of a selection of native fruits: lemon aspen, desert lime, quandong, muntries & davidson plum.

The pairing for the dessert was a mixture of 50% sake and 50% yuzu juice.

The dessert was a meyer lemon meringue tart. The meringue was scorched at the table by kissing it with a hot piece of charcoal. The sake with yuzu was a bit strong for the dessert.

The meal ended with “Sweets of the Sea”: canelé with caviar, a macaron with fish eye crème brûlée, and smoked chocolate with fish bones and fat. Delicious and very original.

This was a wonderful meal. I’ve been to fish restaurants before, but this was without a doubt the ‘fishiest’ menu ever, and I mean that in a good way. Very creative and original, and very delicious as well. The latter is important; I don’t like dishes that are very creative but not very tasty. The wine pairing started very well, but later on some of the pairings seemed to be more about what the sommelier wanted us to taste than what would work best with the dish. The wines were all very good though. The service was very friendly and attentive.

There is no Michelin guide for Australia, but Saint Peter would certainly be worthy of at least one or even two Michelin stars. Outstanding.