SCALING THE HEIGHTS

Pioneer of scale-to-tail seafood cooking, chef-restaurateur Josh Niland explains his waste-not-want-not culinary philosophy - and why fresh isn't always best.

- By Christian Barker

“Luxury has long been associated with waste: using only the 'prime cut' of leather or silk – or beef or fish.

But that's changing. True luxury now lies in knowledge – knowing where your food comes from, who prepared it, and the intentionality behind its use.”

So says Josh Niland, the acclaimed Australian chef behind Saint Peter at the Grand National and Fish Butchery in Sydney, Fysh restaurant at the Edition Hotel in Singapore, and the new Catseye Pool Club at The Sundays hotel on Hamilton Island, which opened this year.

An absentminded moment as a young cook laid the foundation for this empire – and led to Niland finding his calling as an evangelist of dry-aged, gill-to-fin cuisine. Early in his career, while working at a renowned seafood restaurant in London, Niland left a hunk of fish uncovered in the cool room overnight, which rapidly dried out by the fridge's fans. He cooked it up the next day and was blown away by the richness and nuance of the fillet's flavour. Intrigued, Niland began developing his signature technique of dry ageing fish, which he has now finetuned through years of trial and error.

This ongoing experimentation is detailed in Niland's bestselling scale-to-tail seafood instruction manual, The Whole Fish Cookbook. Early in the book, he remarks, “'Fresh is best' seems to be the most overused statement when it comes to fish.” In conversation, Niland cites this quote and elaborates, “Freshness is critical, yes, but it's not the whole story. Small fish, like anchovies or bonito, are excellent at the point of capture. But larger fish like tuna, swordfish or grouper can actually improve days or even weeks after being caught.”