Chef Neil Perry to open new modern Asian restaurant in Double Bay

Loosen your belt buckles and make room Sydney, Neil Perry is opening a new modern Asian restaurant in Double Bay.

The veteran chef calls the project "a humble local restaurant". The reality is it is "humble" on steroids. The sprawling restaurant will occupy two floors of the Neville Gruzman-designed mid-20th century building at 24 Bay Street, just a block up from his Margaret eatery.

While the menu will trawl everywhere from Korea to Vietnam (the chef was making his own kimchi 30 years ago), it will lean heavily on the modern Chinese cooking Perry helped pioneer in this country. Some of it will be along the lines of Wockpool, the pan-Asian restaurant Perry opened in Potts Point in the mid-1990s.

"It's the most beautiful building in Double Bay," he says. Fortis Development Group is in the midst of a rebuild of the site, best known in hospitality circles as the onetime home to Pelicano. Perry's new restaurant is an outside chance to open late 2023, more likely next year.

The Margaret owner points to Double Bay's rich heritage of Asian food, particularly Chinese. Imperial Peking and the 400-seat Cleveland both left a mark in the suburb, while Double Bay Chinese Restaurant closed last year after half a century when its owners retired. It's clear there's an appetite in the area for the Asian genre.

The yet-to-be-named restaurant entrant will reunite Margaret designers Caon Design Office and ACME.

With the veteran chef's business interests in the suburb expanding to include Baker Bleu and new eatery Next Door, Neil Perry and Double Bay are starting to belong together like a wagyu burger and a beer.

"I only want to leave Double Bay to go on holidays," the chef quips about his lack of ambition to open restaurants outside the postcode.