“Go big or go home.” Prior to the May opening of Gibney – a grand waterside brasserie in Perth’s affluent Cottesloe – I imagine George Kailis and the Kailis Hospitality Group team steeling themselves with this chest-thumping mantra. After all, if the goal is to open a landmark destination diner: thinking small doesn’t put sourdough and Pepe Saya butter on the table.
Nor does it put marbled Venetian plaster on towering columns. Or greenlight the sprawling alfresco terrace that maximises west coast sunsets and ocean vistas. Small thinkers probably wouldn’t hand down a white jacket and black-tie dress code for waiters either, or roster on so many of them. Between the floor team and the chefs populating the bustling open kitchen on a Wednesday night, I count around two footy teams’ worth of employees working to feed, water and cosset guests.
Let’s be clear: Gibney is unapologetically old-school and nmodelled after history’s grandest hotel lobbies and members dining rooms. It’s the sort of place you’d have a favourite table and begin every visit with a Martini (the Gibney Gibson Martini with DIY dripper of Islay whisky is a swell time, as are all the house cocktails).
The menu has been raised with old-fashioned values and stars brasserie and steakhouse hits carefully rerecorded by rising chef James Cole Bowen. Seafood is unsurprisingly a strength. Pissaladière gets reborn as a single Olasagasti anchovy draped on a plinth of sour cream pastry dotted with caramelised onion. Stealthily deployed gochujang whisks oysters Kilpatrick towards Korean waters. Sea succulents and golden tempura eggplant curls crunch up cured kingfish.
Sometimes these makeovers are less about inspired substitutions and more about nailing details. The fine-meshed pommes gaufrettes with unusually poised steak tartare, say. Or double-baking choc tart to create two densities of chocolate. Or
using vadouvan spice to brighten western rock lobster, smoky and juicy from cooking over fire and the MVP of a grill menu starring beef, lamb and chicken.
Make no mistake: Gibney is built for special occasion splurges. The menu is booby-trapped with ways (caviar, large-format steak) to give your credit card a workout. Ditto the mighty cellar assembled by wine director Nina Throsby. Want to guzzle icon Aussie
chardonnays or magnums of four-figure fizz? Go ahead. What good is a baller wine list if you can’t flex?
Sure, the bill won’t be small, but such is the price of going big. And as Gibney demonstrates so elegantly, big can be beautiful.
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