First Look: At Greenbergs, You Have To Have the Big Salad

The first thing you have to do after arriving at Greenbergs is decide whether you’re getting a gargantuan serve of salad or all that goodness tightly held in a wrap. The six-part salad menu – at the Lox in a Box team’s new “counter and caterer” in Bondi – sits under the declaration, “Alterations welcome”. But there’s really no need for changes, the line-up is flawless.

I’ve dropped in with a friend and after careful deliberation – and a few rounds of, “What are you going to get?” – we do a deal: two salads split 50/50, and a serve of hot, crunchy, bright-green falafels with a side of green tahini to dip.

Never has a better deal been done.

I go with Harvest, a herby mix of greens, couscous, cauliflower and beetroot, studded with chewy little currants and pomegranate jewels – plus feta to cut the sweet. There are golden hunks of roasted carrot and pumpkin too, and a gently zingy pomegranate molasses dressing.

My scalloped cherry-tomato-red plate is piled high, sitting on a butter-yellow table in the old Burger Park space, with its curved fishbowl floor-to-ceiling windows now scrawled with Rosy Sign Co ’s hand-painted florals.

The serving size leans towards too-big-for-one – then Skipper arrives. It’s a fresh, crunchy garden-salad-style mix, beefed up with little boiled potatoes and plenty of dill. A fillet of just-grilled Ora King salmon sits in slices on top, with a moon of lemon to the side.

As owner Candy Berger told Broadsheet ahead of opening, these aren’t your everyday salads. “The standard salad you’d make at home – chopped cucumber, tomato, maybe some onion chucked in a bowl – that’s not what we do. At home, you’re not going to roast pumpkin with baharat, pickle onion, or toast almonds for your quick lunch.”

As we scoff our lunch and our chat reduces to “mhmms” and nods, a bowl of solid green lands on the table next to us. It’s the Gaia, a lush, chopped mix of broccoli, kale, spinach, edamame and snap peas, with avo and Greenbergs’ house-made ranch keeping it creamy. In the sunny corner seat, the neighbouring luncher has subbed out the poached chicken for a schnitzel instead – and I know immediately what I’m getting next time I’m in.

There are pick-and-mix plates ready for you to fill with proteins (like fennel-roasted chicken and honey-soaked haloumi) and sides (golden smashed potatoes and sticky miso corn ribs), plus a nifty $14 bowl of soup.

While there’s no coffee, you’re sorted with fresh juices and some pretty funky alternatives like earthy cacao and mushroom lattes, ceremonial matcha and specialty tea from Kuura Corp.

For some reason, salad doesn’t have the best rep, a fact that’s all the more confusing after a meal at Greenbergs – this little pocket of Bondi is buzzing just days after the salad counter opens.

Greenbergs Counter & Catering
3/17 Warners Avenue, Bondi

Hours:
Daily 11am–8pm

@greenbergscounter