Food Philosophy

Award winning Chef Peter Gilmore is inspired by the Nature Based Cuisine Movement which is centred on the idea that we can save and protect diminishing or disappearing plant and animal species by eating them.  So the restaurant selects rare heirloom seeds to grow at their organic farm situated in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains.  The restaurant also sources ethically grown rare breeds of pig, lamb and chicken whose species is sustained by its consumption.

This philosophy and passion for the rare and unusual has taken him all over Australia sourcing unique and exquisite ingredients: to Kangaroo Island in the country’s south to source samphire, to the highlands for a producer who can cultivate sea kale, to the Blue Mountains where Quay and its owners collaborate with a local farmer to develop rare crops such as white raspberries, miniature beetroots, Chinese artichokes, red core radishes and barely sprouted peas. As Peter clearly describes: Quay’s menus are designed “from the soil up”.

The result is a spectacularly innovative cuisine which celebrates the diversity of nature, and which describes and explores the contrasts and harmonies in textures and flavours one finds there. Quay has pioneered a new style of dining with a four course menu (five choices per course) with a continually evolving repertoire; some classics, some reworking of old favourites plus new dishes for each season.  The exquisite salad of green figs, young herbs and flowers and lemon jam with goats curd cigar heralds the arrival of summer for regular Quay diners. The pork belly, a fixture on Australian menus everywhere and a dish that critics credit Peter with introducing to the market, has been updated with a gentle braise of green lipped abalone, cuttlefish, handmade tofu, Japanese mushrooms and the daintiest of chive flowers. Stunning Signature Sea Pearls and the classic Quay Eight Texture Chocolate Cake, celebrating the years that Peter has worked at Quay, features on the menu year round.