Just In: Neil Perry Closes Next Door, As Cafe Margaret Moves In

“Think of it like Bar Margaret,” Neil Perry told Broadsheet three years ago, when he and his wife Samantha Perry opened Next Door. The 45-seater, next door to Margaret, has been his white table-clothed restaurant’s more casual sibling ever since. But this week, it becomes what Perry intended: Cafe Margaret.

While the word “cafe” lends itself to the eggs, brekkie sandwiches and coffee end of Cafe Margaret’s menu, dining will flow throughout the day and into the night too. “[The name] invokes some of the great cafes around the world that are my favourites,” Perry says, after Next Door’s final service. “ River Cafe, Zuni Cafe, which are not anything but world-class restaurants – we’re not closing [Next Door] per se, it’s sort of morphing.”

The Next Door burger (recently named Australia’s best, and number 10 in the world, by World’s 101 Best Steak Restaurants) will be the “cornerstone” of Cafe Margaret, along with a cheesy bacon and egg roll (with chipotle mayo, greens, double-smoked bacon and free-range eggs). The last one begs for a classic hashbrown using Margaret’s twice-cooked potatoes.

“I could see a slab of those in between the mayonnaise and egg, that’d be pretty awesome,” Perry says. “We’re doing a fun steak frites with cafe de Paris butter and a fried egg for breakfast, for any of those hardy folk who want to re-engage with the steakhouse side of Margaret.”

By lunch there’ll be sangas aplenty (BLATs, clubs and delis), plus a fish burger zipped up with gochujang and kimchi and a caramelised onion smashburger joining the award-winner. At $49, the “ultimate steak sandwich” sees a crunchy white roll stuffed with Coppertree’s retired dairy cow, “lots and lots” of cafe de Paris butter and chips.

“That’s going to be a pretty phenomenal thing to eat – probably to share. We just want to have some fun with it as well, and just let people eat some amazing produce that we’re excited about.” Dinnertime makes way for burgers, grilled fish and minute steaks.

A dedicated dine-in menu makes room for a takeaway list and a few things to grab and go. The news comes after it was announced the Perrys were stepping away from Baker Bleu, the Melbourne bakery they brought to Sydney with its founders Mike and Mia Russell in 2022.

“For Sam and I, Double Bay’s our life, really,” Perry says. “We’re just part of the community down here and so we really wanted to have a space that interacted with the community, as we have done before.

“I don’t really feel like this is a pivot, so much as movement back to centre. We’re really in a great space, Sam and I are just so happy. We have no partners, it’s just us. We have the two restaurants and the gorgeous little auxiliaries of Cafe Margaret and Bar Torino. And you know, that’s us. We just want to live out our life here in Double Bay and enjoy our staff and our beautiful customers.”

Cafe Margaret opens at 30-36 Bay Street, Double Bay, on Saturday November 1.

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