This week Brendan Guidera from Pristine Oysters invited me to see his operation at Coffin Bay on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia as part of The Eyre Regional Development Board’s Seafood Promotion for Sydney Chefs. I first met Brendan while hosting an Australian Food Promotion at the Hilton Osaka earlier this year.

The township of Coffin Bay is located about 20km west of Port Lincoln and was discovered by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and was named Coffin Bay in honour of his friend Sir Isaac Coffin. Nowadays, Coffin Bay is a small tranquil township which is dedicated to producing Australia’s best oysters.

After arriving at Coffin Bay, we headed out by oyster punt to one of Pristine’s Oyster leases which was about 18km out in Port Douglas which is surrounded by National Parks. When we arrived at the leases, Brendan talked about the process of growing oysters and some of the secrets to a good plate oyster. What wasn’t a secret was the quality of the water as well as the environment, which definitely contributes to the final quality of the oysters.

We then had the experience of tasting oysters directly from the oyster bags of the lease. Brendan started to freshly shuck the oysters which were approx 18 months old, rather plump and were perfectly sized for serving in an a la carte or bistro style restaurant. In terms of taste, the oysters had a sweet, salt water taste with a succulent aftertaste. There was no doubt, these were the best oysters I have ever tasted.

After tasting oysters at the first location we headed to another lease where we found sea urchins at the base of the oyster lease. We found 2 reasonably sized sea urchins which were soon opened and shared between the chefs. The flavour of sea urchin roe can be best described as slightly salty with a velvety consistency.

After the tour of the leases we headed back to the main operations for Pristine Oysters where the oysters are sorted for size using modern machinery. Each oyster is individually filmed and its length and width measured by the computer at a rate of between 200 and 400 oysters a minute. The computer then instructs these special compressed air jets to let fly with a specially measured blast of air that has just enough power to blast an individual oyster from the conveyor into a waiting bag.

Pristine Oysters currently exports about seven per cent of their stock but Brendan is currently working to rapidly expand this part of the business.

To locate a local distributor or learning about exporting Pristine Oysters, then contact ;

Brendon Guidera
Phone +61 8 8685 5056