From next weekend, Potts Point eatery Paper Bird is shifting gears, replacing its breakfast offering with a more relaxed brunch menu that starts later and runs to mid-afternoon. Cocktails, a brand-new wine list and dishes that lean a little closer to the restaurant’s East Asian brief are the name of the game; early-morning coffee and eggs are on the way out.
“As the coffee sales decline and the Bloody Mary sales go up, you start to think ‘should we change it up?'” co-owner Ned Brooks says.
The new 16-dish brunch menu is a mix of favourites from the breakfast menu (the hash browns are staying, as is the fried egg, mushroom and potato bread dish) and new, heftier dishes perfect for hangovers, late lunches and everything in between. That includes panko-crumbed arancini filled with XO sauce, hoedeopbap – a Korean dish of rice and raw fish that’s similar to poke – and crab and corn wontons in chilli oil and black vinegar. Crowd-pleasers such as the pork katsu sando, kimchi and Emmental toastie and, yes, the fried chicken will be sticking around.
The idea is to come with a gang, order a cocktail or two and then move on to the wine list as you share a bowl of pipis in miso butter or perhaps a round of prawn toast sandwiches. Brooks is working on brunch-friendly drinks like a Campari-spiked iced filter made with Single O coffee and a yuzu Spritz featuring Heiwa Shuzo yuzushu, as well as an update to the house Bloody Mary, which ditches the togarashi in favour of gochugaru. If bottles are more your thing, make a beeline for new drops from Martinborough, the Adelaide Hills and more on the refreshed wine list.
The best part? You can now book your brunch table. Game on.
Paper Bird, 46a Macleay St, Potts Point, NSW, (02) 9326 9399, paperbirdrestaurant.com. From 7 April, brunch Sat-Sun 10am-3pm; dinner Mon-Fri 5pm-11pm, Sat 5pm-11pm.
