Perry Hill took up residence as head chef at The Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay in September 2005, following more than ten year’s experience working alongside some of the world’s most renowned chefs—Luke Mangan, Janni Kyritsis, and famed duo Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray of the River Cafe in London. He is also an award winning head chef in his own right.

Perry’s interest in cuisine began at childhood. His parents grew most of the food they cooked, instilling in him a respect for all ingredients, even the simple and often overlooked things. To this day his passion is for fantastic seasonal produce.

This passion is reflected in the daily menus at The Boathouse and his attention to resourcing high quality, fresh and innovative seafood and other produce.

Perry is influenced by the flavours of many cultures but favours the Mediterranean. His cuisine is described as remarkably deft and light with subtle flavouring, the emphasis always being to allow the produce to shine through.
 

Autumn is an exceptional period for NSW fish. Warm summer water temperatures still prevail and the milder air temperatures, coupled with large amounts of smaller baitfish and large spawning aggregations, see large pelagic and semi-pelagic species travel down our coastline.

This allows local fisherman to target these commercially important species closer to the domestic market ports (Port Stephens, Coffs Harbour, Yamba, Evans Head, etc.).

In the case of large high quality tuna, Easter is the starting period for the South Coast of NSW. Although good tuna is available year round, it is certainly more of a winter catch.

March and April signal the start of the annual mullet run. The availability of high quality mullet roe is a real tradition at this time of the year. The mullet run also attracts the large pelagic species that prey on the mullet schools.

Autumn also marks the spawning aggregations of smaller commercially important species along the NSW coast – silver bream, whiting and luderick are all present in good numbers.

Prawns, crabs and local octopus are more abundant during this period than other months. These species tend to be targeted on the NSW North Coast and the south Queensland coast. Spanner crabs tend to be more abundant and have better meat quality – Coffs Harbour and Ballina are good producers.

Peak season
NSW North Coast:
Mulloway (jewfish), yellowtail kingfish, Spanish mackerel, snapper

Starting to peak progressing into the winter peak
NSW coasts, South Australia, Tasmania:
Blue-eye cod, hapuka, bass cod, john dory

Early winter peak
NSW:
Silver bream, sand whiting
All Coasts
Tuna, mahi mahi, swordfish, and marlin (in decline)

Queensland:
Wild barramundi, red emperor, mangrove jack, coral trout, small cod, tuna, parrot fish, ruby snapper and crustaceans are more abundant on the south Queensland coast

 

A Word from the Chef
 

Dear Seafoodies,

It’s an exciting time to be visiting The Boathouse, with fresh faces in the kitchen and on the floor, and some special new produce at its peak on the menu.

Since coming on board at The Boathouse I've featured some unusual and exotic products in addition to the old favourites.

Most of this produce is individually sourced from our incredible network of specialist suppliers whenever an opportunity arises, and hence is often available on a daily basis only.

Some of the seafood that we’ve featured recently included:

Kangaroo Island Pacific oysters. The same supplier also hand harvests samphire at our request. This unusual land growing sea vegetable grows locally along the coastal marshes. We served this with pan fried rouget and chive hollandaise.

Fresh wasabi from Tasmania and Spencer Gulf prawns made an appearance with steamed Murray cod in bourride.

Exceptional New Zealand white bait: This is from Greymouth, a wild and woolly fishing port on the west coast of the South Island of NZ. Unlike our local whitebait this is not a fish but a small eel or elver, a very rare premium product. We served this very simply floured and fried and served with a spiced salt and walnut aioli.

Fantastic stripy trumpeter, a particularly hard specimen to catch as its natural environment is in 200 m deep water. Once hooked it has to be slowly brought up over an hour so that it doesn't get ‘the bends’ and is then kept live in tanks until eating.

Currently we are procuring first of the season spanner crabs from Ballina, which are renowned for their sweetness. The earliest crabs are considered the best of the season. The Boathouse is also featuring some high quality Coffin Bay clams. The clams are left in sea water tanks for three days and slowly lowered in temperature, allowing them to naturally relax and purge themselves of their sand content, whilst maintaining their body weight and sweetness.

In a new dish we are using sea urchin from the south coast which is gently broken through a hollandaise and served with roast john dory and zucchini flowers. Boston Bay mussels – perfectly manicured mussels from South Australia are on the plate with a hot smoked bass groper.

The Boathouse has long been famous for its fresh oysters. We’re proud to announce that we are exclusively stocking the Wooli Sydney rock oyster. These are not usually available to the restaurant market but are specifically grown for the Boathouse in one of the cleanest rivers in Australia. They are considered to be amongst the best in the world. These oysters, highly prized for their superior flavour, are able to be direct harvested, as the waters of Solitary Island Marine Park are so pristine.

A new benchmark will be reached in the coming months when we increase our tank storage capacity for live fish.

For meat lovers – the Dorper lamb hot pot. We are pot roasting small (8 kg) Dorper organic lambs with olives, rosemary, juniper berries and pinot grigio. Served with braised fennel.

See you soon at The Boathouse.

Perry Hill