Neil Perry AM and Qantas: their post-COVID plans
It’s the longest-running culinary partnership in aviation history — Australia’s prince of high end airline food and the beloved national carrier. So, what’s the secret sauce?
Neil Perry has just finished boxing up 1,247 meals. Soon, the little parcels will be dispatched from the kitchen of Sydney’s Rosetta restaurant, where his charity Hope Delivery is operating out of, and delivered to migrant chefs and kitchen hands in Sydney and Melbourne who lost their jobs during the pandemic. “When we finish on December 18 this year, we’ll have done about 300,000 meals,” says Perry.
It’s midmorning, the sun is shining and the chef has an audible spring in his step. He is sanguine about not receiving his usual pay cheque from either of his chief occupations. “I mean, it’s been hard not being paid for either of the jobs you do,” he confesses, referring to both his work on the Rockpool board (in July, he announced he would be retiring from the kitchen) and his role as the Creative Director of Qantas’ food and beverage service.
“But the one thing that’s been gratifying has been doing the charity, and giving people who’ve slipped through the gaps something to eat in this difficult time.”
Of course, Perry is no stranger to resilience. His decorated restaurant career contains a couple of pockmarks, but as the forefather of modern Australian dining, he’s become rather skilled at evolving with the times and weathering crises.
It’s an approach the 63-year-old is preparing to apply to Qantas’ food and beverage offering, when the national airline sends its fleet back into the lower stratosphere.
“Alan [Joyce] has this really great way of saying it — when we get to international, we’ll be starting a new airline for all intents and purposes,” pronounces the chef. “And by that I mean: by the time we can fly again, people will have been on the ground for a long time. So we really have a great opportunity to put our best foot forward.
“You know the old saying? ‘You get one chance at a first impression’. We want to get the airline back in the air with the best possible experience for our various groups of travellers. With the food and service especially — we’ve been able to have a really good look at what we want to do, and we’re making sure we’re doing something that’s interesting. We want [passengers] to be really blown away.”
Perry refers to Qantas using the pronoun ‘we’ — there’s no ‘I’ when he talks about the various dishes he’s created during his 23-year run with the airline. He puts this down to the fact it’s a “true partnership”. When he agreed to designing that first menu for the airline in 1997, he did it on the basis that he wouldn’t just be an ‘ambassador’ or ‘consultant’, which was de rigour for airlines at the time. He wanted it to be a genuine collaboration . For that to work, he requested full creative control.
“It’s rare,” he says. “Every [airline] has these ridiculous panels” — the boards most airlines appoint to preside over all menus — “which are then delivered by in-flight services. It’s actually really inefficient.” Perry says that by handing him the keys, Qantas allowed him to control “the flow and ebb of how the menu reads, and how you dine with it.”
“As a chef, it’s ridiculous to have just one dish on a [flight] menu. We do 880 dishes for Qantas a year,” says Perry, referring to the meals he creates for the airline’s First Class, Business Class International, Business Class Domestic classes and Lounges.
“Honestly, I don’t know why no other airline has picked up this approach and run with it.” Why does he think Qantas feels comfortable giving him the control he requests?
He thinks for a while, then suggests: “Qantas has an outrageous management team. They’re not outrageously arrogant — they don’t think they know everything. Most airlines unfortunately feel like that.”
Qantas is beloved for many reasons — the sterling safety record chief among them, but Perry’s in-flight menu is high up on the list. From the seminal steak sandwich, which has been on the First Class menu for longer than any other dish (an attempt to take it off in 2009 was met with strongly worded letters), to the salt and pepper squid, these are dishes that evoke ‘home’ before you’re even there.
The year 2020 might go down in history as the toughest on record for both the aviation and hospitality industries, an exacta that’s not lost on Perry or Qantas which was gearing up for a year full of celebrations — 2020 marks the carrier’s centenary. But not even a global pandemic could halt the celebrations, which relocated from the air to the ground. Nor could it keep Perry out of Qantas’ test kitchen, where he’s been busy planning exciting new meals, including some that are set to showcase native Australian ingredients.
“At Qantas, we really feel the responsibility to be the kind of showcase, if you like, or shopfront for Australian produce. I think it’s become very important for us, as Australians, to recognise the incredible culinary history we have — 65,000 plus years of Aboriginal culture, and knowledge.
“We’re looking more and more at trying to integrate that into our offering. The thing about native ingredients in Australia, it’s got to be about using them in a very sensible fashion that’s not cliche — it’s important that we recognise the culinary value of it, and we’re very much in tune with the culinary history we have.”
As for how retirement is treating Perry, well, he’s not yet felt the difference. “I’m doing a lot with Qantas, it’s all starting back up. And I’m still training the [Rockpool] guys, and doing about 25-30 hours a week in the charity. So yes, I’m not quite sure about this whole retirement thing, it hasn’t really come to fruition,” he laughs.
So long as we can continue to taste his food, whether it’s in the air, in one of Qantas’ first or business class lounges or on the ground, should he choose to pick up the apron again, we’re not about to be the ones to tell Perry to slow down.
4 of Perry’s most iconic
The chef reminisces on the most memorable dishes to have hit the Qantas menus during his 23 years.
1. Italian-style Zucchini Soup. “So simple but people love it,” says Perry, adding it’s the “most asked for recipe.”
2. First Class Steak Sandwich. “It can’t be taken off,” he chuckles. As for why? “It’s pure simplicity and sophistication [and] it must be served with a good glass of red.”
3. The lounge Chicken Club Sandwich. Those who have surrendered to this after a long day will know it needs no explanation. Perry agrees, claiming it’s “simply the best club in the world.”
4. Garam Masala – Coconut Braised Fish with Noodles. “This was one of the great signature dishes at Rockpool, at its height of being on the Top 50 Restaurants in the World,” says Perry. “It translates to in-flight so well. I think it’s mine and Alan [Joyce’s] favourite dish.”