Amber Doig on seafood and sources of inspiration
At a recent Westholme Wagyu collaboration with Sydney hospitality group Applejack, a humble tostada blew everyone’s minds.
It was a dish from Amber Doig, the Head Chef of Potts Point restaurant The Butler. On a small, crispy tortilla, Doig paired manuka-smoked striploin with muscatel, watercress, and shiso. The dish featured the perfect concoction of textures and flavours – the crispy tortilla contrasted with the tender, rich beef, which was subtly sweetened by manuka honey, and cut through by bitter greens.
“It was kind of a mishmash of cultures… like an Italian-style tagliata,” Doig says, referring to how she cooked the Westholme MB 8-9 striploin. “I thought, ‘Well, everything tastes good on a tostada’, so I chucked it on there and it worked.”
Doig, as it turns out, has a soft spot for the tostada. “I like to have flavours on crunchy things, it just works well for me,” she laughs. On The Butler’s new October menu, the chef has included three tostadas and one simple (but “really well done”) taco.
Among the tostadas is a crispy calamari variety with chile arbol (a potent Mexican chilli, also known as bird’s beak chile), lime, and mayo. “That one’s doubling down on crispy,” says Doig. The chef says the calamari option has been a natural hit, given the protein’s popularity among diners. “You put calamari on a menu in Australia and it’s gonna sell. It’s what we enjoy.”
Other tostadas include shaved squash with asparagus, mint, and buffalo mozzarella as well as scallop with spicy peanut oil, cucumber, and avocado – “probably my favourite out of that list,” says Doig.
But it’s not all crispy morsels at The Butler. The slow-cooked, Oaxacan lamb barbacoa remains on the menu and is one of Doig’s early dishes from when she joined the restaurant seven years ago. Now, The Butler is celebrating its 10th anniversary and Doig’s influence on the restaurant is unmistakable.
“When I started, it was a French Caribbean vibe and there was a bit of Japanese sprinkled in there – it didn’t really have an identity,” says Doig. The chef was fresh off the plane from New York and had trained in Mexican/Ibero-American cuisine under Alex Stupak from the Empellón restaurant group.
“We slowly started to mesh that into the menu in a way that was palatable for the public, it didn’t just turn into something overnight,” says Doig. “We slowly brought in influences from Central and South America and the Americans in general.” The public responded well, which led the team to lean into the style of cooking. Now, The Butler is a modern Mexican restaurant with a seafood focus. For New Zealand-born Doig, the seafood element is personal.
“We obsess over fish,” she says. “It’s part of our life, going out diving with our families. Having so much coastline and such small space, it’s our nostalgic thing to do.” Doig’s love of seafood has led to an extensive selection, with a few niche options available.
“Drawing on my Italian experience, we’ve got cuttlefish on the menu,” says the chef. “We sautée it with – I call it pork sangrita – but it’s literally a Mexican blood sausage. So it’s a classic tapas combination.”
The menu also features a coral trout with mussels, saffron butter, zucchini flower, and snow peas; and a butterflied NZ pink snapper served divorciados (a Mexican style serving of red and green salsas, split down the middle).
As for her personal favourite? “Pretty much all the raw fish, all the oysters – that whole section is my thing,” says Doig. “I don’t know if I could pick one, but simply handled seafood is my favourite.”
The care that Doig puts into The Butler’s menus has not gone without recognition. In 2023, the restaurant’s menu won a 5 Plate Rating in the Restaurant & Catering Hostplus Awards for Excellence.
Doig draws inspiration from chefs across Australia, including Melbourne’s Telina Menzies. “They’ve been massive inspiration for me,” she says. “The way they’ve navigated the industry, being at the executive chef level, but still being so hands on and focused and coming up with some wild dishes completely out of left field.”
She also looks to “women that have come up with dynamic flavours and stayed true to where they’re from”, naming Kylie Kwong and Christine Manfield as two examples (“What absolute boss closes a restaurant when it’s on an absolute high? I can’t name anyone who’s ever done that.”).
Looking forward, Doig’s goal in the hospitality industry is straightforward.
“Being someone that’s been in the industry for more than half their life, I want to make sure that I’m having an impact in a positive way,” she says. “My focus is on kitchen culture, making sure harassment is never a thing, and making the kitchen and the venue a great place to work.”
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