The Mouth review: Chef Neil Perry’s Margaret a ‘neighbourhood restaurant’

This week The Mouth reviews Neil Perry’s new comeback project - universally described as a “neighbourhood restaurant”.

This column does not want to come across all Green Left Weekly but hoo boy, is there some wealth inequality in this town.

Google “neighbourhood restaurant Harris Park” and you’ll wind up someplace where you can get change for a $20 with your plate of chicken chettinad.

Google “neighbourhood restaurant Double Bay” and you’ll wait four months for a table and then have it suggested to you that it might be nice to start with 30 grams of caviar for $190.

Which compared to other things you might buy on the streets by the gram in that part of town is an absolute bargain.

Ahem.

If readers have not already guessed this week we are at Margaret, Neil Perry’s new comeback project – universally described as, yes, a “neighbourhood restaurant”.

Chef Neil Perry at Margaret in Double Bay. Picture: John Appleyard

And indeed it is, in many ways, and a pretty good one too.

In this era of hospitality groups and celebrity chef chains, it was genuinely fun to see Perry behind the pass at a recent service, churning out plates and clearly having a ball like he was the chef-owner slinging bowls of gnocchi in Haberfield.

But being Double Bay, the neighbourhood patrons are less the guy who cuts your hair on the high street and more like famous QCs, business identities, and “that guy from TV”.

But, let’s be honest, it is also a genuine neighbourhood restaurant in that even in the heart of the east it can go astray when it tries to get too fancy.

Neil Perry’s restaurant Margaret in Double Bay. Picture: John Appleyard

This column almost feels ridiculous typing these words, but the pasta to filling ratio on some little spanner crab agnolotti was out of whack, with too much dough to not enough filling. The broth was nice but was under-seasoned (a few more white peppercorns in the stock would have absolved a multitude of sins).

A tuna tartare (billed as “raw tuna, avocado, and nori” to blow off the odour of late-‘90s dinner parties) needed more careful preparation. At $29 a plate this column should not be dealing with silverskin.

Yet there is also real genius here that shows off Perry’s great skill at bringing east and west together with the lightest of touch – which is how he deservedly made his name at the original Rockpool.

A starter of Paspaley pearl meat sashimi with a little hit of white soy ponzu was sublime, perfect, dish of the night. And who would have thought to chuck a bit of sambal into the butter when roasting off a lobster in the wood fired grill?

As a “neighbourhood restaurant” (again, their words) Margaret hits the brief perfectly, because it is designed to cater to the locals.

Whether it is worth schlepping to another suburb’s neighbourhood restaurant (and waiting three or four months for the privilege to do so) is a question best left to the reader.