Cottesloe’s Newest Opening Tigerfish Blends Coastal Cool With Southeast Asian Fire
When it comes to Asian cuisine, harmony is key. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and spicy, five flavour pillars that, in perfect harmony, create something greater than the sum of their parts. It’s also the guiding force behind Tigerfish, Cottesloe’s sultry new coastal bar and kitchen, a soon-to-be destination eatery where the vibrant energy of Southeast Asia and the salt-kissed air of the WA coastline, an east-meets-west, fire-meets-sea fusion.
That idea of balance runs through every corner of the venue, but nowhere more so than in the menu, which reads as seamless dialogue between the cocktail bar and kitchen. The work of venue manager Mark Rutter, executive chef Stephen Ryu, and bar maestro Brendon Scott Gray, it reflects a rare symbiosis that sees flavour move from bar to kitchen in perfect harmony.
“There's a lot of venues that do cocktails as something you have before or something you have after, but this is very much, ‘okay, this dish goes really well with this cocktail,’” says Mark.
Image credit: Tigerfish | Supplied
Among the string of airy, sun-soaked dining rooms and old-school pubs that lie along Cottesloe’s sandy coastline, it’s a refreshing new energy. In stark contrast to the surfside simplicity of its neighbours, Tigerfish brings a dynamic collision of culture and flavour, both distinctly coastal but unmistakably Asian.
The venue, which sits within the iconic Cottesloe Beach Hotel, is split into two defined spaces. Up front, a plush cocktail bar with an impressive sake menu offering uninterrupted ocean views and a short list of the kitchen’s greatest hits.
“It's one of those places where you can go for a dip, have a quick shower, slip into something linen and then roll on into Tigerfish and have yourself a cocktail and a little snack,” explains Mark.
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Beyond that lies the bar-restaurant, offering table service and elevated coastal dining, perfect for more intimate, romantic dining experiences. In both spaces, though, it’s always drinks first.
It’s the drinks offering that underpins the flow of the whole venue, and behind it is Brendon Scott Grey, who brought more than two decades of experience in the industry to the task of creating a harmonious drinks program. Here, he’s drawn on flavours from Thailand, West China and Indonesia, to create a menu of bespoke cocktails, Old World wines, and hand-selected spirits and sake, which come available by the glass or bottle.
“Brendon goes and studies in Japan for three weeks a year with master cocktail makers,” Mark tells me. “To become a cocktail master in Japan takes around ten years, so three weeks a year, he should be done in about 30 years.”
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Emblematic of his approach to a well thought-out cocktail is the bar’s Rum Shiso Smash. Brendon sourced and grew a dozen shiso plants in his backyard, and having recently transplanted them into pots on the Tigerfish backbar (once they’re big enough, he tells me, he’s chosen a plot at the back of the Cottesloe Beach Hotel to allow them room to grow), he’s crafting his own shiso syrup. Muddled with local white cane rum from Idle Hands and some lime juice, it’s poured over ice and served with apple and mint fruit caviar.
“That’ll be very limited, we'll only be doing about 20 serves of that a night,” explains Brendon, “because the shiso plants I can only harvest about a third of the leaves from one plant per harvest.”
Then there’s the house punch, a nod to the Philadelphia Fish House Punch, which bartender lore says was first created to celebrate the momentous entrance of women into drinking establishments. Traditionally tea with peach brandy and lemon, Brendon’s brought the drink more inline with Tigerfish’s flavour palette by switching from English breakfast to oolong, and added local flavour with some West Australian honey. To finish, it’s served with a soy-sauce fish container (reusable, of course) of brandy tea, for drizzling over the drink or shotting like an upfront taster.
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And while it might be the drinks program that lures you in, the kitchen more than holds its own. Hatted chef Stephen Ryu brings serious firepower to the pass, drawing on his time scoring hats at Lilotang and Lilymoo, along with experience running his own izakaya den in Korea. The result is a menu that hums with Southeast Asian flavour and Japanese technique.
Integral to the menu is the use of a traditional Japanese robata grill, which touches most of the protein. Think sweetly charred giant tiger prawns, pork skewers dressed with a masterstock glaze and apple nam jim, or a wagyu ribeye with traditionally Southeast Asian condiments.
At the bar, the menu reads more like elevated snacking, playful bites like a fish finger bao, a tongue-in-cheek nod to a fish finger sandwich finished with yellow curry mayo and mentaiko roe, or a prawn toast spring roll, golden, crunchy and vaguely addictive.
Image credit: Tigerfish | Supplied
As the sun dips below the incredible Cottesloe coastline, Tigerfish finds its rhythm. That cool coastal energy shifts to something sultrier, spicier, the air in the room thickening into the kind of sticky, late-night heat you only find in Southeast Asia. Drinks flow more freely, the chaos of conversation hums louder under heady vinyl beats. It’s proof that harmony doesn’t have to mean quiet, here it thrums to the pulse of the venue.
Tigerfish is set to open its doors next Friday 21 November.
The Details
What: Tigerfish
Where: 104 Marine Parade, Cottesloe 6011
For more information, click here.
Main image credit: Tigerfish | Supplied