Tom Walton from Bucket List Bondi has opened Nudefish Poké at Greenwood Plaza with plans to open a second venue at Martin Place later in the year.
With a boat-to-bowl philosophy, Walton and co-founder James Nathan demonstrate their commitment to serving the freshest, highest-quality, sustainable sashimi-grade fish with Australia’s fish guru, John Susman, also joining the Nudefish family.
“The concept takes inspiration from the sushi and sashimi bars of Japan to the hole-in-the-wall poké shacks of Hawaii,” says Walton. “Both cultures have similar philosophies, treating raw ingredients with the utmost respect and creating some really delicious food, which is what we’re all about.”
The seafood is sourced straight from the fishermen including Alpine salmon from Mt Cook in New Zealand and Walkers Albacore tuna from Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast.
Walton is committed to making everything in-house, from the ponzu and sauces including miso tahini and coconut green goddess right through to the wakame seaweed salad and furikake.
The team have also crafted their own cold-pressed juices and nut mylk shakes, with flavours such as Holy Kale, You Make Me Blush and Bam! Pow! Cacao!
The Nudefish menu features six poké bowls, heroing sashimi fish, master-stock-poached chicken and plenty of vegan plant-based options as well as customisation, putting the Nudefish experience into the customer’s hands.
Customers can build their bowls over a variety of bases, from organic brown rice, baby kale and cabbage salad, rice noodle salad or kelp noodle and papaya salad. The entire menu is gluten free.
For those who don’t do ‘raw’, Nudefish offers aburi-style blowtorching to lightly scorch the fish before mixing.
Unique bowls include Miso Hot Salmon Broth — their spin on ochazuke — where miso broth is poured over the bowl just before serving, lightly poaching the fish. The bowl is dressed with ponzu and packed with bean sprouts, pickled ginger, seaweed salad, shredded kale, furikake and nori.
The Nudefish experience is completed with the Sidekicks. Poké Avo rice cakes are piled with tuna, salmon or eggplant, miso edamame guacamole or miso eggplant dip with cucumber ‘stix’ or gluten-free chips. Matcha and white chocolate popcorn along with cacao, buckwheat and coconut clusters are also on offer.
The space was designed by award-winning firm Luchetti Krelle. Stripped back and raw, the design is clean and pure. Appropriately, the concept is based on the skin and flesh of a salmon. The shopfront takes on a fish like curve and metallic ‘skin’ is represented through the use of galvanised steel.
