Hartsyard closes Gretz bar, puts fried chicken back on menu at new Wish Bone eatery

It's back. When Hartsyard dumped fried chicken from its menu last year, the Enmore Road restaurant even received some hate mail about the decision.

But Sydney's fowl-obsessed diners can relax; the chook is getting another look and its very own venue, Wish Bone.

Hartsyard will close its bar spin-off, the Gretz, at the end of the month, reopening it as a casual Wish Bone in late April with fried chicken centre stage.

"We're working on poutine for the menu, and possibly po-boys. It'll be more of a quick service place, but still service oriented," says Hartsyard founder, US chef Gregory Llewellyn.

"When we changed the focus at Hartsyard to more vegetable dishes, the chicken didn't really have a place on the menu," says the chef, who has enjoyed the freedom of a short break from the hundreds of thousands of serves of fried chicken serves he estimates he has dished up in recent years.

"I always wanted to open a bar. The Gretz paid its bills and made money, it's just time for something different. The new venue is going to be very different, we have a design meeting tomorrow."

Llewellyn is also bullish about potential expansion, despite a raft of cheeky local chook start-ups such as Belles Hot Chicken and Butter.

He believes Wish Bone will work in western Sydney and even other cities. "But we don't want to just string them out. We're family oriented, so it'd have to work for us."