Pub Life Kitchen launches second venue and new butcher

What's the next step when you're a hot-ticket operator in a burger-crazed city placing increasing demands on your kitchen for handmade patties? Buy a butcher shop, of course. In a move that could prove just the tonic for under-siege suburban butchers if it catches on, Pub Life Kitchen owner Jovan Curic has snapped up a Hunters Hill butcher shop to supply meat for its rapidly expanding food empire.

If that's not enough sauce on your bun, PLK opens its long-awaited follow-up to its Ultimo venue on April 26, sliding into the former bistro site at Ruby L'otel​ in Rozelle. Curic says he has cut a supply deal with a Camden-based rare-breed producer that goes beyond burger meat, and while he'll wholesale burger patties from the new shop, he has plans for charcuterie. The Hunters Hill outlet will open later this year.

"We'll either call it Meso or Jovan's Meats," he says. The owners of Ruby L'otel approached Curic as he was finishing up a successful pop-up at Deus Ex Machina, which attracted massive queues. "They had a bistro space at Ruby L'otel that wasn't working," Curic says. "The timing was good, and the space really just needed tweaking. It looks like a big deck, so we've brought a bit of a Greek nautical look to it." Sydneysiders don't live on burgers alone, so there's plenty of other pub fare on the menu at PLK Rozelle.

Pub Life Kitchen will be open for lunch and dinner daily at 68 Victoria Road in Rozelle.