It's not very often I go to Doncaster. But Andrew Ibrahim is a Doncaster local and he knew what Doncaster needed; a cool place with great food and great service and which didn't mean a trip tp the city. Enter The Fish & Burger Co. a restaurant and bar which combines Andrew's background in hospitality, his love of food and his local knowledge.
Let’s start with Fish & Burger Co. because you have just opened. Is this your first place?
It’s the first venture of this particular place. I started the business and designed the concept. I’ve been working in the kitchen but also very hands on within the business designing it. It is the first concept of The Fish & Burger Co. but we are hoping to duplicate the business in the next year or two.
Prior to this, there have been other fish and chip businesses, hence why I chose to go with Fish & Burger Co. because of my experience. Being a resident in Doncaster, there aren’t many restaurants where you feel as though you’ve been out to the city or somewhere different. I live locally so I thought it was a good opportunity to capture the market. So I had the idea to create an upmarket fish and chip bar where people could feel as though they’d been out somewhere funky but keeping it local. Since we opened it has really taken off. I guess it’s good food, reasonably priced, good customer service, for local families, it caters for everyone. We’ve got fish, salads and then the burgers and the chips. We find that say a husband and wife come in, the wife has fish and salad and the husband gets a big burger and so it works.
You’ve got the bar as well. It’s pretty flash.
For a suburban restaurant, it’s pretty grand.
It’s interesting looking down the road because you’ve got a few takeaway stores down the road. How have the neighbours been about you opening?
Probably not the happiest. But they are more of a quick bite place and that was the kind of place I ran before here; more of a traditional fish and chip shop where you’d get your bag with food wrapped up and take it away. That was great but it’s a different experience here. It’s hard for other traders to see a grand shop opening up next to them, but they shouldn’t be comparing, because we are completely different. We are more of a restaurant. You can come with your family or bring a date and it’s a different style of food.
Your background is cheffing.
Yes, so I wrote the whole menu. It’s pretty extensive because I’m covering fish, salads, burgers, sides. There is a lot involved so it’s challenging to cover all that and put the food out at a high level. Now things have changed in Melbourne. The expectations of food have dramatically increased, compared to ten years ago. People will no longer accept something that’s just ok.
It’s ridiculous to even ask this, but do you have to consider whether it’s Instagrammable?
Yes. When you’re going shopping for crockery and stuff, you have to choose the right plates so you can mix and match things that will look nice in a photo and on the table. When I created the quinoa salad with black quinoa and black rice, I wanted to make a really dark salad and then put it on a white page and then have feta, pomegranate so it all hops. There’s so much more to it now than let’s make some nice food and off we go. People, as soon as the food comes out, whether they are old or young, they get their phones out.
The fit out lends itself to that too, with the shipping rope and the neon signs…they’re quite a graffiti style, aren’t they?
It’s not perfect neon, it’s more of a rustic feel. They came out well.
I’ve been in family businesses and working in kitchens since I was a kid. Growing up in the industry, it wasn’t that I had no choice, but I was born into it. Then I fell in love with food.
How long have you been a chef?
About 15 years. I used to work many years ago in my parents’ business as a kitchen hand. So, I’ve been in family businesses and working in kitchens since I was a kid. Growing up in the industry, it wasn’t that I had no choice, but I was born into it. Then I fell in love with food.
I fell in love with it more when I was young and my parents went overseas and I was dating my now wife, and I was left to cook on my own and I started getting amazed by flavours and food. I took her out to a few fancy restaurants and I would be looking at the food and tasting the flavour and wondering how they made it. It started getting more intrigued by it. I would go shopping and be smelling the herbs and spices.
I guess that’s how I created the menu, with a lot of travelling and things I’ve loved over the years. If I was in an Asian country and tasting something, I was thinking about what I could do with that.
I do a squid dish; lightly fried calamari in an Asian slaw with fresh herbs and a chilli mayo. It’s really refreshing. We have a good variety. We’ve got cheesy beef burgers and then we’ve got a vegetarian falafel burger. The falafel are handmade and then made into patties, then we fry them off. I made that dish because of my Lebanese background. Falafels are usually in a wrap, so I thought about how I could turn it into a burger. Things like that have been a hit; getting flavours from my childhood and bringing them together.
It’s difficult, though. You create a business and a menu and hope the public are going to love what you have created. It’s been a really busy business form the beginning and we have already got a bit of a cult following on some of our items; we have a calamari main with two sides you can choose. The calamari is lemon pepper and super tender, it’s grilled, and people love it. It’s overwhelming how people have got on board from the beginning. I can’t complain.
Will you change the menu as you go?
There are always staples that you can’t get rid of. But you need to change things up as well. Especially in a local place where people are coming every week, it’s good to keep variety in the menu to give them something to look forward to rather than knowing exactly what they are going to order every time because it’s not changing. We also have some specials. We recently ran a soft shell crab burger, some mac ‘n’ cheese balls, to change it up and keep it interesting.
We’ve brought in grilled chicken for the burgers because we had some customers wanting something healthier. We used to just have southern fried chicken with the American style burgers but we thought we’d offer grilled chicken too. I’ve created a main meal with it too if people want chicken and a couple of salads. We have a lot of office workers around here and they are often looking for something healthier than cheese burgers. It has been a big hit.
Your parents must be very proud too, given you come from a hospitality background.
Yes. They’re very conservative, so initially when I spoke to them, they said things like, I’m sure it will go well, you have to have faith. But if you have good food, it’s reasonably priced and you have good customer service, there’s no reason why people won’t come back. That has always been my theory from day one. It has been great seeing people from across the community coming in; families, sporting groups, people who work around here, couples on dates and actually the local council comes in every Friday too, which is good. It has been a really great start.
1?001 Doncaster Road