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Finnish celebrity chef Tomi Bjorck opens bar in Bondi

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Chef/owner Tomi Bjorck at Blanca in Bondi.
Chef/owner Tomi Bjorck at Blanca in Bondi. Edwina Pickles

Miso caramel pork ribs, beef skewers with truffle dressing, oxtail dumplings and crispy nori seaweed bread will be on the menu when the bar spin-off to Bondi's Blanca restaurant opens today.

Next door to its restaurant sibling, the Hall Street venue is the latest project from local chef Sam Cole and Tomi Bjorck​, the Finnish celebrity chef. The venue will operate out of the former site of Mr Moustache. "The idea was to start small with Blanca. People are loving our food, so we've opened the bar. It's next door to the restaurant but not connected," Bjorck says.

The chef, who lives in Sydney but returns to Finland to check on his restaurant empire and shoot episodes of Scandi MasterChef, says Sydneysiders have an appetite for "euro-Japanese" food. While he happily mixes crispy artichokes with miso, Bjorck draws the line at some cultural food marriages. So don't expect roll-mop yakitori skewers at his latest venue.

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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