When former Nour head chef Roy Ner opens Jeru restaurant in London’s upmarket Mayfair in late Oct, he’ll sign up for a tiny club of Sydney chefs – Tetsuya Wakuda and David Thompson involved – to check out his luck in the English money.
Great Food items can reveal Ner has secured a website on Berkeley Avenue, in the coronary heart of the sizzling restaurant postcode, household to Nobu and the uber-hot Hot Fish, and just a David Beckham kick away from The Ritz.
London is a challenging marketplace, with both equally Wakuda and Thompson eventually beating a retreat regardless of superior reviews and awards. And Ner is doubling down on the endeavor by taking Middle Eastern food items to a metropolis currently smitten with Yotam Ottolenghi.
Ner sights that as an edge. “[Diners] there are advanced when it comes to Middle Jap food items and open-minded about it.”
To that conclusion he’ll pitch a mix of upmarket restaurant and bar with an entry-amount bakery.
“We eat with a knife and fork on the desk but you will find usually bread, we try to eat with it,” the Israeli-born chef claims.
“I’m passionate about bread and fermentation, so we have integrated a bakery, exactly where we will also offer some Sydney-style cafe dishes,” he claims. “Australia has some of the ideal cafes in the environment.”
It may be Center Eastern in flavour, but Jeru has strong Australian lineage. Melbourne outfit Studio Y has built the 70-seat restaurant, 25-seat cocktail bar and try to eat-in bakery.
“We will use Mayura Station chocolate-fed wagyu, and Australian kingfish is a single of the ideal fish in the earth,” Ner suggests.
He also has an Australian-centered associate at Jeru, teaming up in a joint venture with Bradley Michael from Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Team.
“Roy does the regular Center Jap cooking in an unconventional, twisted way,” Michael suggests.
He also thinks they are comparable persona forms: “I am under no circumstances contented. I am always doing the job on executing superior, and not currently being complacent. I have observed the identical push in Roy. He is usually wanting for techniques to improve, be much better, prepare dinner greater than before, normally striving to appear up with greater tastes and dishes.”