Perth restaurant offers exclusive new rare breed of beef

The rare Rohne breed rivals Wagyu with a marble score of 9+ and is not available anywhere else in WA, with Perry’s sister restaurant in Sydney the only other venue in Australia to showcase the beef.

Blackmore has kept mum on the composite breed, lest the genetics of Rohne be copied. Even the animal’s feed is a secret.

People who prefer a steak with less buttery intensity, a cleaner flavour but the same tenderness as Wagyu will appreciate this particular breed, which comes from a small herd in Victoria and is available in extremely limited quantities, with the first cuts now being cooked on Rockpool’s famed wood-fired grill.

The plan is for Rockpool Perth to receive one carcass of Rohne each month, which will be aged in-house.

Cuts added to the menu will vary each day, depending on the careful and precise dry-ageing process, which identifies when individual cuts are at their absolute peak.

At the moment, the Perth restaurant is offering a 200-gram fillet cut ($99) and 240-gram skirt cut ($49), both aged for 14 days.

The Rockpool-Blackmore relationship extends 25 years, with the Sydney and Melbourne restaurants last year the exclusive recipients of another rare Blackmore breed, Mishima, while all three venues across Australian receive Blackmore’s full-blood Wagyu, widely regarded as the world’s best outside of Japan.

Rockpool executive chef Corey Costelloe said it was a privilege to have exclusive access to such a remarkable breed, which is steeped in secrecy and born of world-class farming innovation.

“We are incredibly pleased to continue to work so closely with David, who is the pinnacle of what good animal husbandry is all about, and arguably Australia’s most innovative beef farmer,” he said.

While Rohne matches Wagyu’s marble score of 9+, it is less rich in flavour than Wagyu due to the intermuscular fat, or marbling, having a higher melting point.

Rockpool Perth head chef Ludovic Mulot said sirloin and rump would most likely follow the fillet and skirt cuts on the menu in following weeks.

“We’re very excited to be in receipt of such world-class beef and to offer our guests something that they can’t find anywhere else in Western Australia,” he said.

“It will be incredible to see how the different cuts age and to gradually add them to the menu as they hit their prime over the course of the month.”

Rohne joins a line-up of spectacular dry-aged beef on the Rockpool Perth menu, including the aforementioned David Blackmore full-blood Wagyu; Cape Grim 36-month-old, grass-fed; Cape Grim 60-month-old, grass-fed; CopperTree Farms 60-month-old, pasture-raised Friesian; and Blackwood Valley, 36-month-old, grass-fed.