Another day, another copy-cat allegation. This time, it’s between two Sydney fried chicken venues located up the road from each other in Surry Hills.
Juicy Lucy has accused Butter of stealing their “Peking Cluck” dish, which the venue has reportedly had on the menu for over a month.
However, the dishes themselves are not the same. Juicy Lucy’s Peking Cluck consists of a fried chicken cutlet with garlic rice, hoisin sauce, pickled cucumber, slaw and garlic rice wrapped in a tortilla.
Butter’s Peking Cluck, which they announced on Instagram last week, is more of a nod to the traditional concept of duck pancakes, with fried chicken thigh strips served with pancakes, shallots, cucumber, hoisin and plum sauce.
Juicy Lucy owner Milan Strbac took to social media with the allegations, posting a side by side image of both dishes. “Our month old Peking Cluck wrap is so popular that @buttersydney which is 300m up the road has decided to follow in out footsteps.”
Strbac also commented on Butter’s post promoting the Peking Cluck, saying “Thanks for totally stealing the name of our wrap for your food.”
A Butter spokesperson responded to Strbac, commenting, “What a cluck up! Great minds think alike?”
Executive chef Julian Cincotta spoke to Broadsheet about the controversy and stresses the differences between the two dishes. Cincotta also confirmed the dish had been in the making since last year.
“We named a dish ‘The Peking Cluck’ and Juicy Lucy named a dish the ‘Peking Cluck’, says Cincotta. “Did we ‘copy’ or ‘steal’ the name? No, we did not even know they had a burrito called the Peking Cluck. Did we ‘copy’ or ‘steal’ the dish? No, we are offering very different things,” he says.
You be the judge.