Randwick’s new hole-in-the-wall eatery, Fed Kitchen, has some very fine credentials. Owners Candy Berger and Gaia Lovell are the duo behind Bondi’s Lox in a Box, well-known and loved for chewy bagels plump with house-cured salmon, herbed shmear and fresh produce. But not many know that tucked behind its tiny shopfront was a commercial kitchen servicing the owners’ existing catering company, Fed Kitchen.

“Over lockdown Lox grew into the back kitchen,” Berger tells Broadsheet. “And once it was over, and our catering clients all wanted to celebrate in their homes again, we wanted to try to share the Lox kitchen. But my manager was like, ‘Find your own space.’”

So they did. The new set up on Randwick’s bustling Avoca Street is now HQ for both Lox in a Box and Fed Kitchen, complete with a commercial kitchen and a perky showroom and shopfront that’s open to the public. Passers-by can come in for coffee, Brickfields and Sonoma pastries, and house-made lime cakes and cookies. There is a rotation of seasonal salads on display for lunch every day, plus a hot menu of sandwiches, brekkie rolls and, yes, bagels.

“Customers have been coming in and have figured out that we are Lox in a Box people. And they want bagels,” says Berger. At Fed, the bagel is open-faced with lox (cured salmon), schmear and an alfalfa caper salad, finished with salted cucumbers and pickled onions.

The shopfront also operates as a showroom where customers can try the catering service before they commit.

“Instead of people ordering from the internet, they can come in and meet us, try the food and talk about our products, what we do and what’s in season at the moment,” Berger says.

Leading the kitchen is head chef Jono Simons, who, as the former sous-chef at Potts Point eatery Ezra, was the perfect fit for the Middle Eastern-leaning menu. Fed Kitchen is known for its colourful, sumptuous banquets – the most popular dish is a baked side of Mount Cook Alpine salmon, topped with baba ganoush, crushed falafel, pomegranate seeds and fresh herbs. Also getting attention is a baharat-spiced lamb shoulder, slow-cooked in stock for five hours, covered in a sticky shawarma rub and baked again. The salads run technicolour, with a couscous salad of seemingly endless ingredients in line to steal the show.

Berger credits her childhood growing up in London and frequent visits to Israel as inspiration.

“I fell in love with the shuk [market] and all the spices and the dips and falafels,” she says. “It just always felt like my kind of food.”

Fed Kitchen also offers a boxed catering service for customers who might not be throwing a huge event but want to pick up a delicious dinner made easy. Think eye fillets, za’atar roasted chicken with olives and artichoke hearts, crushed roast potatoes and zesty salads. Also in store is a selection of time-saving vacuum-packed meals such as shepherd’s pie, lasagne, veggie bakes, curries and soups.

Lox in a Box diehards will be happy to see the deli goods made famous over in Bondi – house-cured salmon, herbed schmear, pickles and egg salad – stacked in the fridge. A curated selection of the artisanal products used in the commercial kitchen out back are on display, and for sale, in the diminutive space. And with bar seating slated for the coming weeks, customers will soon be able to settle in for breakfast or lunch in-house.

Fed Kitchen 121 Avoca Street, Randwick 0456 214 231

Hours: Tue to Fri 7am–3pm Sat & Sun 8am–2pm