Salt is the first language of the Mediterranean. It slips into everything - into the air above a Greek harbour, into the weathered hands of a Sicilian fishmonger, into the soft hush of an Andalusian kitchen where lunch stretches long past the sun’s highest point.
For all the coastline swagger and regional pride, there’s a shared code at work: treat the fish simply, but with total attention. Let the sea speak. Then season like you mean it.
That old-world confidence is washing up on Australian shores in the best way. Across the country, Chefs are turning away from fussy flourishes and leaning into Mediterranean restraint - not as nostalgia, but as a practical, delicious compass for cooking local seafood. The result feels both familiar and freshly coastal: flavours that travel, techniques that fit, plates that smell of Summer even in Winter.
Start with the theatre of a whole fish. In the Mediterranean, a fish is rarely filleted into anonymity. It arrives intact, skin shining, eyes clear, bones promised. Aussie Chefs are echoing that ritual, sending out whole snapper, kingfish or coral trout roasted until the skin blisters and the flesh loosens in pearly petals.
The flourish isn’t complicated - a warm, herbaceous za’atar oil spooned over the fish at the last moment. The toasted sesame, wild thyme and sumac bloom in the heat, sinking into the cuts along the spine, perfuming the table before the first fork even lands. It’s a dish that asks you to slow down, to pick and share, to respect the shape of what you’re eating.
Then there’s octopus, that Mediterranean chameleon of smoke, brine and patience. Pickled octopus isn’t about acid alone; it’s about taming toughness into tenderness and letting time do the seasoning. In Australia, local octopus - plump and wonderfully sweet - takes to this treatment like it was born for it.
Cooked gently, then bathed in vinegar, bay, peppercorns and citrus peel, it emerges bright and bouncy, ready to be sliced thin and scattered with parsley. One bite feels like a sea breeze snapping through linen.
The collar cut is another Mediterranean wink that Australian cooks have embraced. Fish collars - those fatty, under-loved crescents between head and body - are prized around the Aegean and the Levant. Grilled hard and hot, they become all crisp edges and melting, gelatinous richness. Pair that with a green olive salsa and you get a kind of coastal fireworks: briny, grassy, sharp and perfectly matched to the collar’s deep savour. Think mulloway, Samson fish, even big reef species - anything with a generous, oily shoulder.
Just when you think simplicity means minimalism, the Mediterranean reminds you that punchy ingredients can be simple too. Bottarga - cured mullet roe, shaved like salty amber - over a raw scallop is the kind of pairing that feels inevitable once you taste it. The scallop, sweet and cool as a tide pool, meets the bottarga’s oceanic depth. A slick of good oil, maybe a squeeze of lemon and that’s it. No distraction, only clarity.
Bonus: Mediterranean techniques that love Aussie species
- Ceviche-style citrus curing suits buttery Australian kingfish, trevally or Spanish mackerel. Quick cure, lots of olive oil, herbs and a little chilli if you like the sun hotter.
- Charcoal grilling with oregano, lemon and oil is made for sardines, garfish, whiting and local calamari - fast, smoky and eaten with your hands.
- Tomato-braised fish sings with flathead, snapper or perch, letting firm fillets poach in a lightly spiced sea of tomato, garlic and wine.
- Salt-crusting works beautifully on smaller whole fish like bream, trout or market snapper, locking in moisture and turning dinner into a crack-and-reveal ceremony.
What all these codes share is not a fetish for tradition, but a refusal to overcomplicate something already exquisite. In a country ringed by extraordinary seafood, Mediterranean wisdom feels less like borrowing and more like remembering: the best fish doesn’t need much. Just fire, salt, acid, oil - and the humility to stop when it’s perfect.
