Frankie Cox was working as executive chef at Two Hands, a group of Australian-style cafes and restaurants in New York City, when she started to become interested in sustainability in restaurants.

“Living somewhere like New York, you see how wasteful things can be,” she tells Broadsheet. She recalls being particularly concerned about how often food scraps would end up in landfill instead of being composted.

“Coming back to Australia, I was thinking about what I wanted to do, I was falling a little bit out of love with being a chef, and so I needed to reconnect with my purpose and passion for food.”
The answer was Green On, a salad bar she opened in Cremorne in 2021, with a focus on reducing food waste and using local produce. Now, Cox has renamed the shop Crop and finally opened a second outpost – this time on Smith Street in Fitzroy.

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“Whether you’re super interested in sustainability or not, we’re slowly and quietly shifting people’s daily habits and showing that it doesn’t take any behavioural change to make a positive impact – it can be something as simple as having lunch,” she says.

At Crop, Cox sources from local farms where possible, and currently uses 80 percent Victorian produce. “When you focus on where your produce comes from, it has its own benefits and the closer our produce is, the less time in the dry store, the more nutrients it has. So everything has this amazing domino effect that if it’s better for the environment, it’s also better for us, better for our ecosystem, and everything remains closed-loop”

Cox also believes “it’s a basic human right to eat good-quality local produce,” and so keeps Crop’s salads and bowls affordable. Made-to-order salads are just $16, including the best-selling green goddess (spinach, barley, broccoli, green beans, pumpkin seeds, parmesan cheese and green goddess dressing) and winter miso (rocket, barley, sweet potato, red cabbage, green bean, seaweed and a miso and ginger dressing) options.

For $18, you can get a warming chicken broth bowl with barley, sweet potato, broccoli, mushrooms and spinach. If nothing on the menu speaks to you, you can also build your own bowl, choosing from a selection of bases, vegetable toppings, dressings, textural elements such as breadcrumbs and almonds, and optional add-ons including salmon and chicken.

Unlike the original Cremorne location, the Fitzroy outpost is also open for dinner, with the same options on offer from the daytime menu. While Cox has taken her time opening a second outpost, the chef says she plans to grow Crop further. “We have always wanted to have at least three stores. Three is the perfect number to assess how to best scale the business moving forward.”

291 Smith Street, Fitzroy
No phone

Daily 11am–8pm

@cropkitchenau
cropkitchen.au