As chef Neil Perry gears up to open Song Bird restaurant on Friday, August 30, his latest $13 million Double Bay gamble has pushed the hospitality veteran to openly declare a first: “It’s my last restaurant, put that in your headline.”

Perry hinted at similar sentiments a few years back when he opened Margaret, his dining opus that distilled his cooking into a best-of hit. But the three-level Song Bird, an ode to Sydney’s Cantonese restaurants, and its basement bar sibling, Bobbie’s, has been a test for the veteran chef. “If I don’t sleep at night, it’s because everything is on the line,” he blurts out on a site tour.

Perry says his team has spent $13 million on the Bay Street development, $10 million of which is devoted to the new 240-seat upstairs venue. He and his wife, Sam, had to conjure up $5.7 million of their own money, which is riding on the spin of Song Bird’s lazy Susans.

With the success of Margaret, many industry pundits questioned why the 67-year-old would throw his chips back on the table. The answer seems to be: hospitality is in Perry’s blood, his devotion to Chinese food unshakeable, and the sprawling Neville Gruzman-designed building on Bay Street simply too irresistible for the restaurant junkie.

Perry asked designers ACME and Caon Design Office to play to the strengths of the mid-century building. The heritage staircase remains; even the curved pillars offer a mirrored Barbarella-era reflection. There’s cedar panelling, songbird wallpaper in the bathrooms, and lashings of green marble.

“We could’ve bought a quarry in Italy for all the stone we’ve used across the four levels,” Perry says. He dreamt of a reimagined high-end Chinese-inspired restaurant that remains respectful to the building.

Perry tapped Australian-Chinese chef Mark Lee (ex-Rockpool and Margaret) to run the kitchen. Despite Perry’s strong lineage launching brands such as Wokpool and Spice Temple, the veteran chef says Song Bird’s menu is more akin to what he started at Jade Temple, his short-lived restaurant on Bridge Street in the CBD, which closed in 2018.

Song Bird’s opening menu leans heavily on classics, such as pipis in XO sauce and coral trout with ginger and shallots. Predominantly Cantonese, Song Bird occasionally flies north, a cumin lamb dish an early outlier. Perry says truffles will feature when in season, as will white asparagus and expect to garden around some “aromatic soil” on the plate.

“A lot of memories [for Sydneysiders] are built around Chinese restaurants,” Perry says, pointing to the influence of his own childhood family outings to Chinatown.

“Double Bay had this really rich history with Chinese restaurants, with Imperial Peking, and (late 20th-century venue) Cleveland, which I thought at the time was probably Sydney’s best Chinese restaurant,” Perry says. “I’d love to see families in Song Bird on Sunday nights, creating their own traditions.”

Despite the stress of budget blowouts and a weakening economy, Perry takes a long-term view with his projects: “There’s never an ideal time. Spice Temple opened during the GFC, [and] when we opened Rockpool in 1989, interest rates were 18 per cent. We paid $380,000 interest in the first year.”

Song Bird has seemingly landed in Double Bay at an opportune time, with the recent closures of China Diner and the stalwart Double Bay Chinese Restaurant creating a Chinese food vacuum in the neighbourhood.

Perry, who will now have more than 400 staff across his various Double Bay venues, is all-in on the suburb. “I only want to go past Bay Street to go to the airport to go on holidays,” he says. He dreamt up the Song Bird name looking out over the treetops from the restaurant’s upper levels; his longer-term personal goal is to spend his twilight years at a quiet table with a mate.

And Perry says he’s serious about no more restaurants. “I’ve been offered a few things in the city for 2026, and I’ve said no,” he says proudly. It sounds like the restaurant addict means it this time.

Open Wed 2.30pm-midnight, Thu-Sat 2.30pm-2am, Sun 2.30-10pm

24 Bay Street, Double Bay, themargaretfamily.com/venue/songbird/