coming soon - Seven West Media

CHEF
NEIL
PERRY
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING ONE OF
OUR IRON CHEFS?
WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS?
WHAT SECRET INGREDIENT DO YOU FEAR
THE MOST?
Those are really wonderful achievements.
It’a an amazing privilege.
WHAT MAKES AN IRON CHEF?
I think the ethos is really one of stability,
ability and longevity in the industry. It’s also
about great skill and flexibility as you have to
take on all challenges. You have to be able to
move in and out of your genre and depending
on who you’re pitted up against you’ve got to
be flexible enough to rise to the challenge.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO BEAT YOU?
A good cook hopefully. I want to go out there
and represent myself and Rockpool well.
We’ll certainly be striving for perfection -
striving to create an experience for the judges
that, hopefully, will put us in front every time.
Probably my flexibility. I cook modern
Australian, additionally I am well versed in
Asian cooking. I’m in a situation where I’m
able to call on the skills i need in order to win
the challenge. I’m not locked into a box.
WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM SECRET
INGREDIENT BE?
That’s really hard for me because I cook
Chinese, Thai, French, modern-Australian. So I
have a lot of ingredients I love to cook with. But if
I really had to choose I’d say a beautiful fish like
bass grouper or some really wonderful protein
like a gorgeous chicken or pork – something we
can really work some magic with.
Seasonings are more difficult than a main
ingredient because you have to create a dish
that has a significant amount of the secret
ingredient through it – so with seasoning
that’s a bit difficult. If it was cumin for
instance – I know a lot of great dishes with
cumin but I’d have to make sure that it was in
perfect balance with each dish. Overall I can’t
think of anything I don’t like cooking with.
There’s not much I don’t like including offal.
WHAT’S BEEN YOUR CAREER HIGHLIGHT?
It was most exciting to be selected in the
top 50 restaurants in the world and then
subsequently doing it for seven years in a row.
That was a pretty amazing achievement. And
the first year we won Gourmet Traveller’s
Best Restaurant and we did that three more
times. And also winning Sydney Morning
Herald’s three hats and restaurant of the year.
IRON CHEF