Chef Neil Perry honoured with Icon Award

Former Rockpool chef Neil Perry has been named the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards “Icon” at a ceremony held this afternoon in Las Vegas.

The 2024 Icon Award – presented in a room packed with high-profile chefs, restaurateurs and food media at approximately 10pm US Pacific Time – celebrates Perry as “an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the hospitality industry worthy of global recognition”.

“[Perry] is arguably the most revered chef in his home nation, and a friend and mentor to many across the globe,” said awards presenter Olivia Freijo Lloyd.

It is the first time an Australian chef has received the Icon Award at the so-called Oscars of the food world, determined by a voting academy of more than 1000 “independent restaurant industry experts and well-travelled gourmets”.

Previous World’s 50 Best Icons include chef and activist Dominique Crenn, owner of San Francisco’s three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn, and Andoni Luis Aduriz, the founder of pioneering San Sebastian restaurant Mugaritz.

Crenn, a friend of Perry’s, was on stage to present the award in Las Vegas. “For me, it’s always been about hospitality through generosity,” said Perry, accepting the trophy.

“It’s about making sure we care about each other – the [restaurant] team is everything. Then we have to look after the community and environment.

“What I’ve always tried to do is make sure that when young people come to work for us, they don’t just end up being better at their craft – better cooks, or restaurants or sommeliers – but end up being better people. If we do that, then I really think we’ve done our job.

“This award is just incredible.”

The 66-year-old first gained attention at Palm Beach’s Barrenjoey House, where his kitchen talents earned the destination diner a coveted hat in the 1984 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. Bondi’s Blue Water Grill further propelled Perry’s Sydney stardom when it launched in 1986, and Rockpool opened on George Street three years later.

“For me, it’s always been about hospitality through generosity.”

Neil Perry

Rockpool’s immaculate seafood and east-meets-west flavours put Perry on the international stage.

In 2002, The Rocks fine-diner debuted in fourth place on The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards inaugural list, published in British trade magazine Restaurant (and with considerably less fanfare than a red-carpet event in Las Vegas). UK-based events and publishing company William Reeds owns the 50 Best brand today.

Throughout his career, Perry has also been at the helm of Wockpool, Spice Temple, Rocket, XO, MCA Cafe, Rosetta, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Burger Project, Jade Temple and Eleven Bridge. Some venues were wildly successful; others decidedly less so. Across more than 40 years of cooking, however, Perry has been awarded more than 150 Good Food Guide hats across his restaurants, far eclipsing any of his peers.

Today, one-time apprentice hairdresser operates Margaret in Double Bay, it’s adjoining bar Next Door, and charity project Hope Hospitality Foundation, founded during the first wave of COVID to provide meals to people in need. Later this year, the chef will open two more establishments in Double Bay: modern Cantonese restaurant Song Bird, and Bobbie’s, a basement jazz bar down below.

Although it was named Restaurant of the Year in the current edition of the Good Food Guide, Margaret did not make it onto the World’s 50 Best list in 2024.

The only Australian venue to make an appearance was Josh Niland’s cutting-edge seafood restaurant Saint Peter in Paddington, Sydney, which placed 98th on the 51-100 “extended list”, announced in late May.

First place was awarded to Barcelona fine-diner Disfrutar, where a four-hour tasting menu costs $AU470 and recently featured a dish called “Fear: The Prawn” (guests are asked to blindly hunt through dry-ice vapour with bare hands to retrieve the titular shellfish).

A Spanish restaurant also claimed second position: fire-fuelled Asador Etxebarri, set in the quiet Basque village Atxondo. There are no piped gels and tweezered ants at Asador Etxebarri, rather pristine, seasonal produce cooked over custom-made grills by chef Victor Arguinzoniz.

Table by Bruno Verjus in Paris placed third, up from 10th position last year, while Madrid’s DiverXO came in at fourth. A meal at DiverXO will cost $AU735 and may include blue crab with kimchi ice-cream and grilled wild strawberries.

The only Australian venue to make an appearance on the list was Josh Niland’s cutting-edge seafood restaurant Saint Peter at No.98

Copenhagen’s Alchemist – predicted by some industry experts to take the top prize in 2024 – was number 8 on the list, down from its fourth placing last year.

Led by chef Rasmus Munk, Alchemist features a dome-shaped ceiling with changing projections of jellyfish and coral reefs, and the 50-course “impressions” menu costs $AU1070. One dish looks freakishly like a human eyeball and features a “pupil” filled white asparagus juice and pistachios, topped with caviar and fish-eye gel.

Disfrutar now joins the awards’ “Best of the Best” group, composed of all restaurants which have topped the annual poll over its history. The Best of the Best restaurants – including Noma in Copenhagen and New York’s Eleven Madison Park – are no longer eligible to be voted on for new editions of the 50 Best list.