Saint Peter – 12 March 2017

I can’t remember exactly when Saint Peter started popping up on my radar, but its signature dish, oysters with blue scampi caviar, really caught my attention. Then once I saw the fish offal, I knew I had to go. However, I didn’t really arrange a dinner since I was more interested in their brunch since it was equally unusual, and I hoped that it would also be more accessible.



So here I was. And it turns out you do kind of need a booking for brunch, which I had an inkling might happen. I would say it’s safest to make a reservation, just in case. We were lucky enough to have a table for an hour, and since I saw Artificer post that Saint Peter was using their coffee, I decided to try it out. Their batch brew was not as bright and acidic, but that kind of explains the side of milk. An interesting approach, to serve just filter coffee. I kind of like it!

Okay. Yes, this picture has been shopped. I actually had to tone down the blue so that you can see all the different shades of caviar. When I tried this on my phone, I completely washed out the lemon so that it was almost white! That’s how brilliant and bold this caviar is. Yes, it’s tasty too! I was worried it was going to be too oceanic and briny but it actually was quite nice with the oyster. Because of its price though, I only put it on one of my two oysters. If I had the money, yes, I would put this $14.50 supplement on all my oysters!

Sea urchin crumpets! I found this to be a really interesting concept and wasn’t sure it would work, since it would largely depend on the crumpet. I really enjoyed this; the crumpets, being house made, were not rubbery, and they were fried (I think), making them deliciously crispy and therefore giving a textural contrast with the sea urchin. The sea urchins were really nice and sweet, so the sprinkling of salt on the crumpets made it so perfect and complementary in flavour!

There was totally not enough urchin for the crumpet though!

Guyra Destructor yabby scrambled eggs on toast! I love the name of this yabby because it’s so adorable! It makes up for the fact that this day wasn’t featuring the Donnybrook Marron scrambled eggs. But hey, when the crustacea is cooked this nicely, who cares! Plus there’s that saying, two heads are better than one, right? When you think about it, you’re forking out $38 for one slice of toast, a couple of eggs, and the rest of the money is going into these adorable creatures. Wow!

So that’s all I have for Saint Peter. I really want to come back and try the lemon tart and some of the fish offal that Mr Niland seems to be really good at preparing, but I am a little sad that I might not be able to… this restaurant would have to thrive the next three years for me to get another chance. So we’ll see!

P.S. At the time of writing this, I haven’t yet posted about Cirrus Dining even though I’ve been there, and haven’t been to Saint Peter for dinner service. Given a choice of only one of these two restaurants to visit, I’d say go to Saint Peter. My impression of Cirrus is that it’s more “classic” and that Saint Peter is more progressive/contemporary. And go to Yellow if you want some Brent Savage genius; my future post about Cirrus will explain why!