Meet Mary, our fishmonger.

Mary Calabro started selling fish out of a leased corner of a Sydney Fish Market warehouse in 2014. She had previously been a marine biologist. She left the academy because, in her words, "I missed the smell of the boats."

We started buying from Mary in 2019, after our previous supplier started charging us city prices for what turned out to be wild-caught-claims that didn't always check out. Mary made one promise on the first call: I will tell you everything I know about everything I sell you. Where the fish was caught. By whom. On what gear. Within six hours of being landed, or you don't pay full price.

She has kept the promise for seven years.

Mary's call comes in at 4:45am Tuesday and Friday. She runs through the catch, dish by dish: what came in, what the size grade is, what's worth the money, what isn't tonight. If the kingfish is small, she'll say so. If the snapper is so fresh that the eyes are still convex she'll say it twice and add an exclamation mark. She doesn't sell us anything she wouldn't put on her own plate.

In return, we don't haggle. We pay her price. We pay on the day. We don't return what doesn't sell at the end of service because that's not her problem.

Two years ago, when one of our young commis (a kid called Aaron, two months in) miscounted the order and we ended up with 40 kilos of John Dory and a Tuesday booking sheet that wanted half that, Mary came to the kitchen herself, met Aaron, told him the difference between an honest mistake and a careless one, took the surplus back at her cost, and sent him home with two fillets for his mum.

Aaron has been with us four years now. He's the saucier at Sydney CBD. He still tells the story.

We have grown from one branch to four since Mary started supplying us. We have changed almost every other supplier at least once. We have not changed Mary. We will not.

If you want to know who really runs a restaurant, watch who calls at five in the morning. That's whose kitchen it really is.

— Sara