How a watchmaker and chef found common ground

A mother’s gentle act of service for her cancer-stricken son set Josh Niland on a pioneering path in fish-focused culinary innovation that has gained global recognition.

The precision, passion and innovation inside Zenith’s factory in Switzerland made award-winning chef and culinary pioneer Josh Niland feel right at home.

A ‘Friend of the Brand’ since 2023, Niland dropped in on the watchmaker’s headquarters in Le Locle on the way to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony in Italy, where his Sydney restaurant, Saint Peter, was named 66th on the extended 51-100 list, jumping up from 98 last year.

“The factory visit was genuinely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had outside of a kitchen,” Niland says. “I think it was just so aligned to the way my brain works.”

For Niland, the resonance went deeper than the obvious parallels between the precision of watchmaking and the meticulousness required to provide a genuine and memorable fine dining experience.

Niland showed Zenith’s Creative Director a photo of a Yellow-tailed Kingfish he’d broken down fish butchery-style for his presentation at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ 50 Best Talks in Las Vegas in 2024.

The Zenith executive responded by showing Niland an exploded view poster of a Romero Chronomaster showing all 362 parts of the watch.

“So, the two of us were geeking out on what all that looked like. That was the `aha’ thing for me.”

“I’ve always said, to truly know the subject of what you’re working on, you need to know every single part of it. That’s the only way that you’re going to really advance that product forward.”

Niland has studied fish parts intently since opening a small Sydney fish restaurant with his wife, Julie, in 2016. The 18-seat Saint Peter in Paddington became a base camp for a gastronomic revolution based on unwashed fish and the concept of fish butchery.

However, things almost came crashing down before it even began. Taught at chef school that only 50% red that wasting so much of a $1,100 fish would quickly send him broke.

Rather than abandoning his concept, cutting staff or raising prices, Niland decided to emulate butchers, who aim to use every part of an animal.

He began picking through the bench bins in Saint Peter’s kitchen to see what fish scraps could be used.

He applied principles of anatomy and chemistry, experimenting with non-traditional cuts of fish to acquire a deep understanding of every part of a fish.

Niland now uses 90% of each fish using all kinds of innovations. Saint Peter’s seasonal menu can feature noodles made from coral trout bones, fudge crafted with Yellow-fin Tuna bone marrow, tuna salami, fish eyeball ice cream, and even a coral trout liver banoffee pie.

It’s possible the 90% rate could edge a little higher, with Niland and his team working on a liqueur made with fill gills.

“That would leave the gall bladder as the last piece of the puzzle,” he says. “However, after reading about its potential toxicity, I think I’ll leave that to one side.”

The confrontational nature of some of the ingredients is deliberate. “Without provocation, you can’t make any change,” Niland says.

As well as Saint Peter, named the 2025 Australian restaurant of the year, Niland’s business ecosystem includes a retail fish shop and partnerships with Hamilton Island boutique hotel The Sundays and Singapore restaurant FYSH.

Niland jokes that once caught, his fish never touch water again. He’ll happily explain the science of how water interacts with fish to produce trimethylamine, the compound responsible for “the fishy smell”.

This anti-water policy allows fish to be dry-aged, another process borrowed from animal butchery and just one more of Niland’s culinary innovations.

The Nilands moved Saint Peter to a new location last year, after a six-year wait for the refurbishment of a historic pub to be finished. The new Saint Peter in Paddington features a 40-seat dining room, a 30-seat bar, a private dining room, and a 14-room boutique hotel located upstairs.

“I’ve always said, to truly know the subject of what you’re working on, you need to know every single part of it. I think it was just so aligned to the way my brain works.”

Josh Niland

Next year marks 10 years since the original Saint Peter opened, and Niland said he has a multitude of events lined up throughout the year to celebrate.

Amidst all this empire building, the Nilands are also raising four children, now aged 12, 10, seven and four. Which begs the question, how does Niland manage it all?

“I try to focus as much as I can on each moment that I’m given, communicate as well as I can to the extraordinary teams around me and try to make time to run a few times a week to make sure I’m mentally equipped for the work I do,” he says.

“That being said, Julie works so hard to ensure we don’t drop the ball; she is the one who should be celebrated. I’ve never met someone who works as tirelessly as her, and without her, I’m sure I’d be a mess.”

While sustainability, innovation and intention remain Niland’s driving forces, he’s also trying to give people the very thing that started his journey towards chefdom, the idea of food as love.

Niland was diagnosed with kidney cancer at the age of eight, and after every chemotherapy session, his mum cooked him lunch before taking him to school.

“I thought that (cooking for someone) was just one of the most generous and wonderful things somebody could do for somebody else,” he says.

“It’s a very simple act of kindness that really doesn’t take too much effort, but it does require a lot of intention and thought.” Learn more at www.saintpeter.com.au