Celebrating Fin-To-Gill Eating

With his restaurant Saint Peter, fish shop Fish Butchery and award-winning cookbook, Aussie chef Josh Niland is making the confrontational desirable and revolutionising the way the world eats fish.

- Joyce Huang

Eye chips made using the eyeballs of mirror dorys, ground to a paste, spread over a large sheet pan, air dried and then baked until they puff up like prawn crackers. A macaroon filled with a Murray cod fat caramel butter cream. Panfried milt, fish liver foie gras, fish blood black pudding, fish sausages encased in fish stomachs, fish head terrine, a cassoulet made entirely out of fish products — these are just some of chef Josh Niland’s innovative and eyebrow-raising repertoire of dishes that he serves up at his seafood restaurant Saint Peter.

Confrontational? Yes. Gimmicky? Not at all. Niland loves fish and for the 31-yearold Australian chef, working with what people normally deem the undesirable parts of a fish is a matter of simple mathematics and sustainability. Why buy a $400-fish only to throw more than half of it away? In a time when food waste is a pressing issue, using all parts of a fish not only makes more financial sense for restaurants but also creatively challenges a chef to realise the full potential of a fish.

Just as Fergus Henderson convinced the world with the concept of nose-to-tail eating of meat, Niland is advocating the same for fish — respecting a fish means using as much of it as one can, minimising waste and maximising flavour possibilities. At his 34-seater Saint Peter in Sydney and fish shop Fish Butchery a few doors down, Niland aims to use 90 percent of any fish. With the release last September of