Perfect pairing of surf and sea
“I’LL take a dozen of these,” Darren Robertson says, pointing to an ice tub filled with vibrantly blue swimmer crabs.
“Oh, these look great, too, better get a few of them,” he says of some speckled lobsters, while simultaneously ordering a couple of kilos of green lip and dara clams from the stallholder next door.
Never mind kid in a candy store, there’s little more excitable than a chef in a fish market and there’s no hiding Robertson’s joy shopping for what will later become an impressive beachside barbecue banquet.
It’s 8am and the Jimbaran fish market is a bustle of activity. Fish-filled tubs and slabs of ice are carried by cigarettesmoking workers through the covered market where stall after stall is laden with last night’s catch displayed in all its impressive glory.
This is the largest fresh seafood market in Bali, where a steady stream of trucks arrive ready to whisk that catch of the day to the five-star hotels and increasingly voracious restaurants of Seminyak and beyond.
Incredibly, the market smells fresh and clean, with not even a waft of the hold-your-breath fishy pungency you might expect from a space that bakes in the Balinese sun.
Shaggy of hair and posh of accent, UK-born, Byron Baybased Robertson is the poster boy for the surf-loving Three Blue Ducks’ brand of produce-first, seasonal fare that’s struck such a chord that the original three ducks have grown to six, and their first cafe in Bronte is now joined by restaurants in the Sydney suburb of Rosebery, Byron and the new W Hotel in Brisbane. Another venue is set to open in Melbourne this summer.
But it’s at the W Bali – Seminyak that we are cooking up this beachy seafood banquet — and by we, I mean the Duck. I’m far too busy sipping on a spritz in the sun and taking in the roaring surf from the makeshift alfresco restaurant that’s magically appeared on the lawn of the polished fivestar hotel.
And that’s what W Hotels are renowned for the world over. The luxe brand’s polish and panache attracts pretty people from around the globe who come to the W Bali for stylish beats and sumptuous eats and sunset cocktails that are shaken and stirred long after dark.
Robertson and his fellow Duck, Mark Lebrooy, have flown in for a Three Blue Ducks island takeover. While Lebrooy was sent to W Maldives, Robertson is here in Seminyak showing no signs of short straw-itis and getting on with delivering the Ducks’ famed no-fuss approach to cooking that lets ingredients shine.
That means our beach barbecue is an excellently executed parade of all the clams and squid and fish picked up earlier, simply cooked over coals with a little spritz of lemon, a lick of garlic and a hit of chilli.
With this feast in front of me, the surf’s salt in the air, a sea breeze taking the edge off the equatorial sun, it is, quite frankly, a perfect lunch.