What will be a 2015 food trend? Sydney's style-setters are locking their radars on the chicken shop as the city's next humble food reinvention. Chef Justin North, one of the first toqued chefs to jump on the burger trend (he is involved in The Burger Shed), will open a yet-to-be named eat-in chicken venue, before Christmas, at the Buena Vista Hotel in Mosman.
Good Food hears chicken will be extra-hot next year, with one of Sydney's top bar tsars also eyeing the sector and another operator planning a chook assault on the US market. North, who will continue in his role as chef at The Centennial Hotel in Woollahra while overseeing the project, wants to jazz up the chicken genre with "big South American barbecue flavours" and will fill out the menu with chicken toasties and southern fried chicken.
Inspired by the Chicken Shop in London and start-ups in Chicago, North hopes to also offer takeaway down the track. "It will be taking chicken up a notch, so I guess you can compare it with what happened with burgers," he says. How much chicken can one city eat? "We're about to find out," North says.
