Pub Life Kitchen and Carramar local Jovan Curic opens a classic burger joint with a twist in his old ’hood
CARRAMAR kid Jovan Curic, one of Sydney’s original new-wave burger kings has opened back in his old ’hood. Curic who opened the first Pub Life Kitchen under the guise Bill & Toni’s Pub Life in 2010 has headed southwest with Superior Burger in an old convenience store on the aptly named Bulls Rd in Wakeley.
Curic says he and his silent partner, an old mate and fitter and machinist, have spent a small fortune on the fitout to keep the original 1970s look of the wood-panelled shop, including installing a giant 6m photographic mural of the grass-fed hormone-free Hunter Valley black angus cattle that will go into the burgers.
“We made the shop feel like its been here forever. The timber lining has been on the walls since the 1970s. We are too scared to even touch it. The brick bar is also from the 70s. It’s always been there as a takeaway and there have only been three owners.”
Despite the cost of the fitout don’t expect modern day Instagrammable, towering Franken-burgers.
“We did all that,” says Curic who remembers “smashing” Dan Hong’s famous burgers at Lotus, way before the current wave of famous chefs’ burger projects.
“I think its overkill. When we were at The Burger Experiment (at The Lord Wolsley) on Wednesdays, when we ran out of bread, we’d do the double down (with extra patties and no bread). We thought the uglier it is the better.”
But chef Mark Best brought him back to reality.
“It’s a shame to hide salt-aged beef under all this other rubbish,” says Curic. The fanciest his burgers will get now is the same cheese as used by US chain In-N-Out, homemade barbecue sauce and McClures Pickles. There will also be Coors on tap.
A test run revealed not everyone will stomach $15 for the standard burger, or $12 for four “Hot n Sticky” chicken wings.
“We are jut testing the waters at the moment,” he says. “We’ve had about five people walk out today and the other 40 have bought it. But we have had to be quite strong in that everything is made in-house, we smoke the veg for the sauce in the back laneway, and the beef comes direct from the farm. There is a lot of work in the menu.”
He is hoping to appeal to both locals and food fans who tend to travel long distances for their next hot hit.
“We are a burgers for the purists and wed like to be believe we have a bit of a support base around us for what we’ve done over the years.
“I’d like to thing we are delivering to the local audience out here, and the diversity here is crazy. Plus a lot of the bloggers have come out of the southwest of Sydney and food is very prominent. Food is life out here.
“Everyone is gagging for it.”
