Neil Perry: Rockpool to reopen as Eleven Bridge; chef Phil Wood to stay
Chef and restaurateur Neil Perry announces he will close one of Australia’s original innovative fine restaurants.
Australia’s most recognisable chef, Neil Perry, is pulling the pin on possibly Australia’s most famous restaurant. Rockpool will close at the end of next month.
Perry and business partner Trish Richards plan to reopen the Bridge Street Sydney site a week later as Eleven Bridge with a more affordable and accessible menu and style.
Rockpool has survived 27 years at two different sites, in The Rocks and more recently uptown, as one of the nation’s leading restaurants. The kitchen has spawned hundreds of chefs, many of them now famous in their own right.
Phil Wood, the current head chef of Rockpool, will remain in the role at the next incarnation.
In a statement, Perry said: “Our motivations to close Rockpool and open Eleven Bridge are varied but the most significant is that we have two Rockpool restaurants in close proximity (referring to Rockpool Bar & Grill) and we have at least 100 guests turn up to the wrong one every month.”
Perry, Richards and a new business partner, Californian tech millionaire David Doyle, launched Rockpool Bar & Grill, a more simple and casual enterprise with a menu based on beef, fish and charcoal, in Melbourne nine years ago. It spawned two more - in Sydney and Perth - adding to the confusion around the Rockpool name.
The original restaurant, with its subtle Asian influences, got lost in the stampede. However Perry also conceded it was time to move away from the “traditional concept of fine dining” at the grand, and undoubtedly expensive site.
Rockpool’s last service will be on July 30.
Today’s announcement comes only a few weeks after chef/restaurateur Mark Best announced the imminent closure of Marque, the award-winning high-end diner in nearby Surry Hills.