Page 30 - foodservice magazine April 2019

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PROFILE
THE ROCK BEHIND ROCKPOOL BAR AND GRILL
YOU’VE HEARD OF NEIL PERRY, WHO HAS WON MORE CHEF HATS IN THE GOOD FOOD GUIDE THAN ANY OTHER CHEF. BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE HEAD CHEF BEHIND HIM, WHO IS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS, AND WHO SAYS HE’S ‘IN LOVE’ WITH THE RESTAURANT HE HAS WORKED IN FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS? IT’S TIME, SAYS JILL DUPLEIX, TO MEET THE UNSUNG HERO OF SYDNEY’S ROCKPOOL BAR AND GRILL, COREY COSTELLOE.
exciting,” he laughs. “One said, ‘I’ve just done 16 hours of work’ and I remember thinking ‘wow, I’ve never done 16 hours of anything!’”
Costelloe trained at Sheraton on the Park, then Catalina with chef Angel Fernandez, before heading to Hayman Island with Peter Kuruvita, a move that then led to helping Kuruvita launch Flying Fish back in Sydney in 2004. “Peter taught me how to run a business, how to cost food”.
“I fell I love with the restaurant pretty quickly. It’s hard not to when you’re a chef and you see whole pigs and lambs come in, and chickens with heads and feet.”
When Kingy was born, he took some time off, only to be “sucked back in” to work with Fernandez and Khan Danis when Neil Perry launched Rockpool Bar
and Grill in 2009.
“I fell I love with the restaurant pretty
quickly,” he says. “It’s hard not to when you’re a chef and you see whole pigs and lambs come in, and chickens with heads and feet. You can’t get fish in better condition than we do here.”
Having worked closely with Perry since Rockpool opened, and catering events such
as the Australian Open and the Grand Prix, he has huge respect for him. When a media investigation revealed that the Rockpool Dining Group was underpaying staff in 2018, “It was a bad time for all of us,” he says. “My mum rang me, my grandma rang me. To see him get painted with that brush really killed me, after all he has done for the industry.
I wanted to speak up for him, but I had to bite my tongue because it was a legal matter.”
What’s next for the 40-year-old chef, after 10 eventful years at Rockpool Bar and Grill? “We’ve had fires and water leaks and changes of ownership, but the core team is still here, and we just keep pushing through,” he pauses. “We just keep cooking.”
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PROFILE CHEF
Rockpool Bar & Grill
66 Hunter Street, Sydney
02 8078 1900 www.rockpoolbarandgrill.com.au
Corey Costelloe lives for fish. When he’s not charcoal-roasting King George Whiting for Sydney’s rich-listers, he’s
out on Middle Harbour in his 24’ fishing boat, catching kingfish. Even his kids (son Kingy, 9, and daughter Coby, 6) are named in honour of kingfish and cobia (black kingfish).
Costelloe reckons fishing is in his DNA thanks to growing up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and childhood holidays with his grandfather Ron on Queensland’s Fraser Coast. It was work experience at 15 years old that gave him the restaurant bug.
“All the chefs were swearing and talking about wild parties and I thought it was all so