Want to catch one of Australia's best chefs flipping burgers? Neil Perry will be manning the grill of his latest Burger Project store, in Parramatta, from 11am on Friday, March 10.
You'll have to forgive the chef if he's a little bleary-eyed: Neil launched the new Sake menu in Sydney on March 9, then jetted to Brisbane to do a night shift at the Queensland outpost, caught a 5.30am flight back for the first Parramatta Burger Project service and plans to fly to Melbourne immediately after, to oversee the state's Fratelli Fresh evening service. Phew.
Back to Parramatta: the new outpost is his largest store so far, with 90 seats and an open kitchen. The menu will be the same as other BPs, with hand-formed Cape Grim beef patties, Lilydale chicken and crumbed confit mushroom vegetarian burger options, bundled up with classic condiments.
Chips will come with classic, chipotle or Sichuan salts, and you can add a lick of malt to your Valrhona chocolate or salted caramel thickshake for an extra 50 cents.
"We've had Parramatta on the radar for so long," Perry says. "We actually committed to the site before we opened [at] the MLC centre [in late 2015], it's just taken this long to get it running."
"We really feel like Parramatta is a growing, vibrant centre and we have so many fantastic kids that work for Burger Project who will now get to work closer to home, which is exciting for them."
The new store follows the opening of Perry's first Brisbane outpost, with 10 more stores slated to open before the end of the year.
"We have one to open in Bay Street in Broadway, and three more stores to open before June, then we're hoping to lock in six more stores to get us through until next year," Perry said.
Open Mon-Sun 11am-9pm.
Shop 1 and 2, 134–140 Marsden Street, Parramatta, burgerproject.com