If you yearn for the good ol' days, when sandwiches were more packed than David Jones on Boxing Day and burgers fell apart if you weren't holding them between two Superman-strong fists, Bennett St Dairy should be your Bondi go-to. Not only do these guys deliver dishes shaped by an old-school sense of abundance and generosity, they source ingredients in an old-fashioned way too: straight from the farm. Bennett Street Dairy is a new kid on the block, having opened in November 2015 — but locals are already treating it like a staple.
After all, following a long morning in the surf, it's hard to knock back a rye bread sandwich with house-made hot corned beef, jack cheddar, house relish, pickles and Bennett St mustard. It's one of the oldest recipes in the British recipe book — in Old Blighty, you'll hear it referred to as a Ploughman's Lunch — and that's for good reason. Especially when the relishing and curing is done on site. There's also a bunch of salads, bagels, bruschettas, breakfast bowls and so on. And the coffee comes from Pablo and Rusty, brewed and frothed in a cutting-edge machine known as 'The Black Eagle'.
Rather than going for a themed or 'eclectic' approach, the interior keeps things simple. Think wooden floorboards, wood and metal stools and massive windows, letting in bucketloads of sunshine.