Longshore on Beyond The Pass
The fine dining seafood spot bringing snacks and sustainability to the Sydney restaurant scene.
In this episode, Jarrod Walsh & Dot Lee (Longshore Executive Chef & General Manager), alongside Lightspeed’s own Graeme Alexander chat about seafood, sustainability, snacking and hospo heritage. Plus, Graeme is entrusted with an entire dry-aged rainbow trout which, if history is to be believed, is not the best idea.
Who are they?
Sydney's newest hatted restaurant
What do they do?
Sustainable, seafood-forward food
Since when?
2023
Longshore is the product of Jarrod and Dot’s shared experiences and values.
With a number of bucket list venues littering their respective resumés, they came together to open their 2nd joint venture, Longshore.
Whilst their previous restaurant together, Hartsyard, was already an established venue when they purchased it, they used it as an opportunity to fine tune their ideas—a practice run of sorts.
Longshore is completely their own creation and they have nailed it.
Housed inside the former Automata space, they have transformed the dining room into a more welcoming, warmer space. Some elements remain, such as the central communal dining table downstairs, and the barrel-like curved ceiling on the mezzanine. It’s the same room, but the edges are noticeably softer, the lighting more inviting, putting you at ease from the moment you step foot inside.
So, we’re cooking fish again
“Perfect for the job.” - Direct quote from Jarrod Walsh in reference to the Kiwi knife’s fish filleting capabilities
As we enter the kitchen, I’m presented with a whole dry aged coral trout—gnarly teeth and all—and tasked with filleting the beast. For those of you that are new here, giving me any fish at all to work with is, historically, a bad move. Giving me the best fish I’ve ever seen with my own eyes (dead or alive) to hack at with my trusty Kiwi knife is borderline reckless. But hack at it I do, under the regretful gaze of Jarrod, watching over my shoulder and realising that I wasn’t joking when I told him seafood was my Achilles heel.
After finally removing the fillet (with more than a little help from Jarrod), we set about pinboning it with a set of Bunnings pliers and then it’s ready for the pan.
Next comes the heat
I can feel Jarrod’s faith slowly coming back
After managing to yield a suitable portion of coral trout to cook with, it’s oiled and salted, then laid into a ripping pan, skin side down, and topped with a couple of weights for an even sear. Once we’re happy with the colour and the crisp of the skin, we flip the trout and there is a wonderful, irresponsible amount of XO butter ladled into the pan for basting purposes. The smells coming from this thing are the stuff of dreams and I feel like Jarrod is starting to believe in me again.
This is the most capable I will ever look in a fine dining kitchen. Savour it.
There’s no such thing as too much XO
“I don’t think you could’ve cooked that any better.”
I feel fully redeemed as I remove the perfectly-cooked coral trout from the pan and set it aside for a much-needed rest.
This is a short-lived redemption.
Plating time is usually my bread and butter. I can arrange a plate fit for even the most insufferable instagrammer on my worst days. What I don’t usually have to do is carve fish.
Jarrod’s faith in the Kiwi is all but gone, but he still holds some faith in me as he entrusts his $1200 knife in my very nervous hands. If you look closely, you can actually see equal parts terror and excitement in my eyes as I behold the blade.
And I don’t disappoint as I show Jarrod and the watching world that even with the best tools in my hands, I am more than capable of making a mess of things.
My carving hack job is mercifully masked by more XO butter, some native greens—which are some of the wildest things I’ve ever tasted—and then topped with some straight up XO which I think I could eat with a spoon if left unsupervised.
It tastes exactly how it should taste which, suffice to say, is absolutely incredible. It is a testament to Jarrod’s recipes that even in my hands, they can sing.
Starting out in hospo
“She knew I couldn’t do anything else”
It was always going to be a life of toiling in hot kitchens for Jarrod. After excelling in food tech at school, and on the advice of one of his teachers, Jarrod dove head-first into the industry, entering straight from graduation and continuing to the day he finally got to share a kitchen with yours truly and my trusty Kiwi knife.
Dot, on the other hand, didn’t originally envision a life of corralling a rowdy dining room full of eager guests. Her sights were set on a life in fashion or yoga teaching but hopso, as it quite often does, dug its claws in and with some good co-workers and mentors, Dot remained.
Making a place their own
“I got really comfortable”
Longshore isn’t Jarrod & Dot’s first restaurant. Along with each of them working in venues of high esteem, Dot at Momofuku and Jarrod at Automata (the space of which is now occupied by Longshore), they worked together at an old favourite of mine, Hartsyard.
And it was here that they began to feel ready to take the next step in their careers and try their hand at ownership, taking over the reins at Hartsyard and putting their new ideas out there from familiar surroundings.
The challenge of owning and running their own restaurant offered Dot in particular the right amount of discomfort where she’d previously felt comfortable—a perfect balance to keep things interesting. Taking over an already established restaurant and trying to impose your own ideas upon a public with pre-existing expectations is as big a challenge as it gets, but they navigated it masterfully.
And then things came full circle, for Jarrod at least. With the ghosts of his past echoing amongst the high, wood-clad ceilings in the former Automata space, Longshore was born and Jarrod finds himself back on the tools in his old stomping ground.
Snacking & sustainability
“I get full really quickly!”
Sustainability is a bit of a buzzword these days. It’s bandied around by anybody with a keep cup and tote bag, but Longshore are not part of this demographic.
They are shrewd practitioners of an art form often claimed, but seldom achieved.
Every single part of their ingredients is used in some capacity. Leftover pieces of fish are turned into a vibrant, punchy XO. If it can be pickled or fermented, it will be. Even their fruit wastage is sent over to the bar to be transformed into a sustainable cocktail, then sent back to the kitchen to be dried and turned into a flavourful sweet seasoning.
And then there’s the snacks. It’s a genius solution to having eyes much bigger than your stomach.
We’ve all been there when you want everything on the menu but you’re either smart enough to know that that’s too much food, frugal enough to know that that’s going to be too expensive, or dumb enough to order it all and be left staring at a table full of wasted food and shattered dreams. I’m usually a mix of all three.
Longshore’s solution is a snacking flight—a 10-course tasting menu that leaves enough room for the next course and won’t have you feeling guilty for skipping your morning jog the next day. You get to try (almost) everything on the menu without breaking the bank or your belt buckle. It’s win-win!
Full transcript
Full transcript
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It's funny how things work in cycles, isn't it?
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For Longshore owners Dot and Jarrod,
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their hard work in some of the country's best restaurants
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Momofuku and Automata to name a couple,
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have culminated in a homecoming of sorts.
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A return to a place with a good chunk
of their journey began to take shape.
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Only this time around
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armed with those years of experience,
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they've managed to craft
something that is completely their own.
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I'd be lying if I said I wasn't
a little bit excited on this one.
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This is Beyond the Pass.
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Thanks for having me.
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Yeah. All right.
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Talk to me
a little bit about your history.
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So, you know, was it always going to be
hospo as a career choice for you guys?
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I was pretty not good at school,
except for food technology.
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And then teacher said
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I should probably leave school,
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and let's do that which more than happily did.
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And then after that, I was like
straight into hospo and didn't stop.
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That teacher nailed it.
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She knew I couldn't do anything
else, that's it!
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I actually wanted to be in fashion or a yoga teacher,
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but I just really liked people, and,
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I got pretty, like, lucky
with a lot of mentors and stuff,
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so I just kind of stayed in hospo, I guess.
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You guys have worked in some, like,
absolute bucket list venues.
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Like, it's a crazy list
and I'm super jealous, but also...
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Don’t be!
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I would never survive in those ones, I don't think
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Was there a moment
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you guys were working in those places
where you looked around,
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and it was kind of like a watershed moment
where you're like,
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I think I can do this.
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I think I can go out on my own.
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Probably working at Hartsyard
before we took over Hartsyard,
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that for me, that was my time
when I was like, I think it's time to,
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you know, put ourselves
into running our own place
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because that's kind of the end goal
that you want, I guess.
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I got really comfortable
the opportunity of Hartsyard came up,
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and that was a situation
where we felt uncomfortable again.
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So that was really, really like fun.
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You want to be comfortable,
but you also want to be challenged.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Was that any pressure living up to,
I guess the history
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or the past of, of these places
when you came into to make them, your own?
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Yeah, definitely.
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Like we learned
taking over a Hartsyard, how
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how challenging it is to kind
break it into your own.
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So coming into here,
we were a bit more comfortable being able
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to know exactly how to distinguish
ourselves from the current place,
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straight away.
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With all that said,
shall we jump into the kitchen?
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I can try and not embarrass myself.
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Yeah, let's do it. Yes!
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Okay, so, Jarrod, this is intimidating as fuck.
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Yeah.
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What are we going to be making with this?
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Just a little simple dish of coral trout,
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It's just being pan fried.
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Xo butter, more xo on top.
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Some native grains.
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It's more about showcasing the amazing fish.
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Where do we start?
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Let’s start filleting it.
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Yeah, good job I’ve already brought this fresh Kiwi knife then.
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Perfect for the job.
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That’s it.
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Perfect for the job.
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I make it look so much easier.
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Once you do 500 of them
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it starts to get easier.
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So we got the fillet off.
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What's next?
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Clean the fillet.
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We'll take the ribs off, pinbone it, and
then we'll cut it into a nice portion.
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We’re ready to start cooking then.
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Let's cook it. Let's do it.
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So we're going to pan try this?
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Pan fry, yeah. Ok.
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Now it's nicely rested.
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You can do the honours of carving it.
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And then we'll put it together.
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And then it's ready to be eaten. Cool.
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We should taste it.
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Yeah, I reckon we should.
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Let's dig in.
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I don't think you could have cooked that any better.
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Exactly.
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That's how it should taste.
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Yeah, good. That's it.
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Yeah, that's good, it’s beautiful.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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Pleasure.
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We’re in Sydney, we've got the ocean.
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It's like right there, literally.
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Fish and chips shops are everywhere.
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They all kind of do the same thing.
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Why do you think more places aren't doing
what you guys are doing
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with fish in respect to aging it,
drying it out, that kind of stuff,
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treating it the way you guys do,
is it like a lack of creativity?
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Is it a lack of inspiration? Is it
laziness even?
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Well, I think first of all, like the
seafood, it has like a shorter shelf live.
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And then in order for you to store it correctly
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to dry aged correctly,
you also need a lot of storage.
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You need a lot of skills behind it.
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So I think perhaps that's
why if you just stick with the basic,
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you can just get away with it
like a lot easier.
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Just quietly who do you reckon
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is the best cook between you two?
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It doesn’t need to be quiet.
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It has to be Jarrod.
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Jarreo, not quietly.
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I'll take that.
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You'll take it.
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Great.
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I’ve never won anything,
but there we go.
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I love snacks.
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You guys have a nice little snack
angle to your menu.
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Like the snack flight.
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Tell me how that came about.
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I just really like to go out and snack.
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And I never want to just dine
at one restaurant if I have time.
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And I realise that I have to commit fully
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to a lot of things
and I get full really easily.
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So I ended up
only can visit two places max.
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But I also want to jump in different
like bar hop, restaurant hops
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that kind of thing.
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So the idea
originally started out as that.
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And that's why we want like a snack menu
just so people can come in after work
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and then just maybe before another dinner,
kind of thing.
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So another major
part of Longshore is sustainability.
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Like, what do you guys do to ensure
that you operate sustainably
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and what can we as consumers and diners do,
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to make sure that not only just
with Longshore but going forward
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as like a dining scene
can do in respect to being sustainable?
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I think, there's so many different things
we can do to be sustainable.
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We run on minimal waste.
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With our menus, not throw
anything in the bin like with the XO.
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We use the offcuts and leftover seafood
for that and any leftover like fruit
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or vegetables we give to the bar
and they go into our cocktails.
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Every single thing is used.
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Yeah, as customers when you go as well
to purchase things to cook at home,
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looking for Australian products
that have actually been
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sustainably sourced is a small thing
you can do where you go in and see,
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like the seafood, it's like MSA
Sustainable seafood and buying
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from smaller Australian suppliers
that have those practices in place.
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Well, guys, thanks so much for having me.
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It was an amazing experience.
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Fish was incredible.
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It was cooked really well,
I think this place is even better.
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No worries, anytime.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for coming in.
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Thanks for having me.
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Thank you.
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Next time I'll I'll try and stay that side
of the kitchen.
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Yeah, for the line.
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That’ll be best.