Barry McDonald brings a fresh take to Sydney’s fast-food dining.
The man who brought Sydney the popular Italian grocer and restaurant chain Fratelli Fresh has turned his sharp eye for quality to a new Bondi venue, Green Dream, an all-day salad bar that’s about grab-and-go meals. The latest venture for Barry McDonald, Green Dream is no buffet salad bar. Instead, the cabinets are stocked with more than 50 salad ingredients such as organic chicken, late-summer tomatoes, edamame and tuna preserved in-house.
“It just made sense to me,” McDonald says. “My background is produce. Fratelli Fresh was all about the produce. It’s going back to the roots, really.”
A curried cauliflower and spicy broccoli quinoa salad.
He sources ingredients from suppliers he’s worked with throughout his career, and his other weapon is chef Ashleigh Jarvis, an apprentice at Fratelli Fresh who went on to The Ledbury and Dinner by Heston in London, and both the Sydney and Melbourne locations of Rockpool Bar & Grill. Jarvis will create weekly menus of eight salads for those overwhelmed by the choices on offer for a DIY bowl – tuna, rocket, radish, cucumber and egg salad dressed with pesto, say, or the Full Moon Party, a mix of poached chicken, cabbage, bean shoots and coriander finished with a spicy peanut dressing.
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Guest chefs will be invited to create a salad each month, and 10 per cent of the sales will go to a charity nominated by the chef. First up is Guillaume Brahimi with a Niçoise in support of the National Indigenous Culinary Institute.
The small shopfront space is dotted with plants and green-leaf motifs, while white-tiled pillars, marble counters and whitewashed floors add to the light and bright feel.
Breakfast bowls and Uber Eats are on the cards within the next couple of weeks.
Shop 1, The Pacific Building, 180-186 Campbell Pde, Bondi Beach, NSW, no phone, green-dream.com.au. 11am-9pm, daily.