Sydney to get raw food restaurant
A casual lounge style restaurant and bar, with a 100 per cent plant-based menu, will be opening at the Ovolo Hotel at Woolloomooloo Wharf in March.
Alibi will be the first Australian restaurant to be opened by renowned US chef, restaurateur and plant-based food pioneer Matthew Kenney.
The venue will take over most of the ground floor of the hotel, making the Ovolo the only hotel in Australia to serve a 100 per cent plant-based menu.
Kenney, who come from Southern California, is a vegan and raw-food pioneer.
He has helped bring plant-based cooking and entertainment into the mainstream in the US.
Along the way, he has created an empire that includes restaurants in several American cities; runs a raw and vegan culinary academy and a retreat in Thailand.
He has also written more than 10 cookbooks.
He also has some serious credential in the restaurant industry being named by Food & Wine magazine as Best New Chef in America.
Also, he has been twice nominated by the James Beard Foundation (the Academy Awards of the US food industry) in the Rising Star Chef category.
But why a vegan restaurant? And how will that go down in Sydney?
According to the Ovolo Group, their decision to open a restaurant that serves only plant-based food is totally in keeping with a growing trend for eating vegan. There is a market for vegan eateries out there.
"We have listened to the market and know healthy eating is a priority, so we made the decision to partner with Matthew to develop a new plant-based concept not yet seen in an Australian hotel restaurant," Ovolo Hotels' founder and CEO Girish Jhunjhnuwala told Broadsheet.
Kenney is still helping to put the menu together.
While he won’t be running the Alibi kitchen, he will be working with group executive chef Kasper Christensen to tweak the menu.
The breakfast and room-service offerings will be revamped and there will be a focus on plant-based food. There will also be non-vegan options.
by Leon Gettler, February 18th 2017.
