Newsletter # 21 – Iconic Australian Hotels, the Sydney Hilton (1975)

by Ken · September 5, 2025

In Newsletter # 11 I touched on an early Sydney Hotel, the Adam’s Hotel. That hotel went the way of many fine buildings in 1960’s Sydney when it was demolished in 1969.

The Adam’s hotel’s unique charm was replaced in 1975 by the Brutalist architecture of the Sydney Hilton Hotel, which at the time, with nearly 600 rooms was Australia’s largest hotel. This was the Hilton group’s third appearance in Australia with the Chevron Hilton, King’s Cross opening in 1960 and the Melbourne Hilton on the Park opening in 1970.

In early 1975 I had finished my apprenticeship, and I had been lucky enough to work with a French Chef who had been transferred from the London Hilton to work in Sydney. He had arrived early, and the new hotel wasn’t ready, so he worked at the Hyatt Hotel (where I worked) for a number of months. When the Sydney Hilton opened, he asked me to work with him. It was the first time I was head-hunted, but I still had to survive the interview process.

On the day of my interview with the executive chef, I joined a queue of many hundreds of other job seekers. I didn’t stay in that queue for long for my mentor passed by and whisked me away to see the boss. The feeling of guilt I had for queue jumping didn’t last long. For memory I started in the main kitchen one week before the Sydney Hilton Hotel opened.

Unlike many hotels today, the Sydney Hilton had multiple food and beverage outlets. The hotel featured four stand-alone restaurants; six bars, three of which ran menus; a nightclub; a service bar to cover two of the restaurants, the 24-hour room service and the function/events floor. Also, within the hotel we had a staff cafeteria which was open 24 hours a day.

I started in what was then regarded as Sydney’s best restaurant – The San Francisco Grill, at the Sydney Hilton Hotel. It was the place for celebrities and the well healed to be seen and with food and service to match. The cuisine in the Grill room had a West Coast of North America influence, in particular the Fisherman’s Wharf precinct of San Francisco. The decor featured lots of dark timbers and polished brass. It was also a time of no breathalyser or fringe benefits tax with many long lunches being held in the restaurants private dining room. Over time I worked in a number of the other food outlets that I mentioned above, before returning to the San Francisco Grill as Chef de Cuisine.

The following recipe was inspired by the Bouillabaisse at Di Maggio’s restaurant, which like the restaurant I once worked in, is long gone. The accompanying dipping sauce is called Rouille and has a separate recipe card

Seafood Gumbo

Really important. Because this is quick to cook, make sure you assemble all the ingredients, before you start cooking. Avoid over seasoning or too much liquid. Remember you can always add, but you can’t take away.

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Prep Time 30

Cook Time 20

Servings: 6 people

Course: Main Course

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

50 ml olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic or 4 cloves peeled and finely chopped
150 g onion – One medium sized peeled and finely chopped.
1 tsp minced chilli
1 ½ tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground turmeric
150 g celery – washed peeled, cut julienne
150 g carrot – washed peeled, cut julienne
100 g leek – the white part split, washed, cut julienne.
150 g fennel washed, cut into julienne
500 ml fish stock
500 ml vegetable stock
300 ml white wine
40 ml lemon juice
Seasoning – Salt and pepper.
200 g tomato - ripe blanched, skin and seed removed.
18 Green prawns -shelled tail on, de-veined
12 Mussels -in shell
2 squid tubes – cleaned cut into twelve pieces
450 g white fish fillet – skinless boneless, cut into six pieces. 300g net
12 scallops - out of shell. 100g
12 oysters – In the half shell out of shell
chopped parsley.

Equipment

A five litre Dutch oven or similar sized saucepan.

Method

Assemble ingredients
Sauté the garlic and onion in the oil, over low flame for 2 minutes. A little colour is acceptable.
Add chilli, paprika, cayenne. Stir in for 1minute.
Add celery, carrot and leek. Continue cooking/stirring for another 2minutes.
Add liquids, bring to boil. Turn down to slow simmer.
Add tomato. Check seasoning.
Add Mussels and Prawns. Bring back to a slow simmer. Should take less than two minutes.
Add Scallops and fish. Bring back to slow simmer.
Add oysters, parsley. Taste test. Adjust to suit.
Serve in large pre-warmed bowls with the rouille on the side

Notes

Substitute the seafood to suit your taste.
Decrease/Increase the spice to suit.
The ingredient list looks a little daunting; however you can break the recipe into two separate jobs. Firstly the vegetable broth which would include everything but the seafood and parsley. You could even consider cooking this the day before. The second part is naturally the seafood.

Rouille

When you search for a recipe for rouille you generally will find the starch ingredient will be bread with the potato variety less common, but effectively it achieves a similar result. Apart from an accompaniment for the soup it also makes a great dip with crackers.

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Course: Side Dish

Ingredients Equipment Method