Mimi’s head chef reveals secret to making Coogee restaurant ‘cool’

Mimi’s restaurant began as an ambitious, high-end ‘service at table’ seafood palace and ended 2020 as the undisputed Instagram-king-slash-celebrity fave.

Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards once said: “If you’ve gotta think about being cool – you ain’t cool.”

Such is the story with the restaurant that surely won 2020 — Coogee Pavilion’s Mimi’s which began as an ambitious, high-end ‘service at table’ seafood palace and ended the year as the undisputed Instagram-king-slash-celebrity fave.

Clipped early on by a few critics who labelled it “overpriced”, the pastel-hued eatery was nevertheless embraced wholeheartedly by Sydney’s social royalty who seemed to adopt it as their default cafeteria.

But its raging success was no fluke, says executive chef Jordan Toft, whose tableside-service menu of morsels such as caviar bumps — caviar served on your hand and accompanied by a shot of ice-cold vodka — and salt-crusted mud crab have been copied en masse across Sydney.

Mimi’s executive chef Jordan Toft. Picture: John Appleyard

“I think trying to be cool is the first mistake you can make,” says Toft, who was headhunted by Merivale boss Justin Hemmes six years ago while slinging pans in Los Angeles. He arrived in Sydney looking to create a dining space of “substance”; a restaurant where the food was every bit as sumptuous as the fit-out.

“That is my worst fear … to be all show and no go, or whatever analogy you want to use.

“Authenticity and consistency is key and that is always my attitude as opposed to just chasing Instagram posts.”

Pip Edwards and pal Jaz Daly dine at Mimi’s. Picture: Instagram

But the Instagram posts did flow — a creamy-filtered Mimi’s table landscape emerging as the ultimate Sydney social flex in 2020.

So where to from the top?

“I don’t think we have even hit our straps to be honest,” says Toft, who believes Mimi’s will find a new gear in 2021.

“I think every single day about ways to grow the business and push things forward. If I can achieve that, even in the smallest of ways, and continue to deliver consistency day in day out — at a really high standard — then I’ll be happy.”