Keeping up with Josh and Julie Niland is difficult. Since opening Saint Peter on Oxford Street in Paddington just 6 years ago they’ve grown its reputation here and abroad; established two Fish Butchery outlets, and recently launched a home delivery service; opened Charcoal Fish to rave reviews, a business that looks ripe for expansion; and then there’s two internationally acclaimed cookbooks and Josh’s growing media profile. It begs the question of when the Niland’s sleep. Far from resting they’ve just announced what could be dubbed Saint Peter 2.0. And it includes a 14-room boutique hotel.

Closing the original site they’ll refurbish and reopen the Grand National Hotel, also in Paddington. “We’re taking it from head to toe,” says Josh Niland of the long-closed property. “From welcoming them in to seeing them off, it’s a pretty wonderful experience to put a night’s stay in there or a weekend away,” says Niland of his step into the life of a hotelier.

The new restaurant space seats 45, the bar accommodating 35, and a private dining room another 16. “We can get up to that 90 to 100 mark all in at one time,” says Niland. “I was never wanting to put Saint Peter into something that became unruly and too big because I don’t have any desire to do that. The environment in the front bar will be one that can be used as a transient bar space where you can come in and have a drink before the next place you go to, you can start a meal there, you could finish a meal there, you can use it for snacks and smaller things from a bar menu,” he says.

“We always loved the idea of going to Rockpool Bar and Grill and sitting in the bar but ordering a steak off the restaurant menu. It was always quite a nice gesture, I thought, from the restaurant to extend that offering to something more casual, not putting up too many barriers.”

While the constraints of the original Saint Peter provided, says Niland, a needed challenge for himself and his team it will be nice to have “a proper kitchen, a very generous kitchen,” he says, with a cold counter that will allow oyster service and raw dishes they’ve long wanted to do, with the addition of a a pastry kitchen where they can “properly exercise the dessert muscle that we’ve deprived ourselves of.” Niland is keen for a “beautiful wood grill,” combi ovens and target tops so that they can cook in pans. “I mean, right now we cook off a single barbecue at Saint Peter,” he says.

Experience is at the heart of what the Niland’s do. He explains that cutting capacity at 362 Oxford Street down to 18 diners was something that people questioned, but that it was in a desire to “give people a great experience, where they could engage with the chef and our team on the floor in a different way, that unpacked and addressed some of the techniques and ideas [that are integral to Saint Peter’s success], because I don’t believe we communicated that well enough to guests in the early stages.”

This new move is in part down to the evolving idea of what Saint Peter can achieve. “With confidence comes the desire to want to speak to people and wanting to engage with people,” says Niland. “I’m really proud of the offering here, it’s just now I want to get in front of more people, a larger setting so that people can feel more comfortable using Saint Peter and not feel that it is some niche hole in the wall that if you didn’t sign up three months ago, then bad luck.’

We’ll have to wait at least 6 months to see Saint Peter 2.0 emerge. In the meantime, it’s an opportunity to experience the original; a space that changed the way we look at fish restaurants; somewhere that at just 26 years old Niland says he was able to express himself for the very first time without having the intense pressures of huge wage costs and everything out of his control; a space where “I could get my arms around it and feel a sense of comfort,” he says. The rest, as they say, is history.

Related news: Josh Niland has opened a second Fish Butchery site in Waterloo, Sydney.