Serva is all about pickles, ferments and chutneys, made by a chef who relishes chatting about his craft.
There are sportspeople who swear by drinking pickle juice. Cricketer David Warner swigged the stuff to manage cramps halfway to a double century in 2022. Daniil Medvedev sipped the fermented liquid to sooth spasming muscles during a 5½-hour Australian Open battle with Rafael Nadal.
Sitting in Serva, a serene, orange-tinged cafe and pickling palace in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the medicinal aspects of owner Miles Ackermans’ vast range of pickles and preserves, served in sandwiches, toasties, muffins and salads, are far from our minds.
Instead, we’re swooning over his umami-rich mushroom toastie, a marvel of portobello and Swiss browns laced with kombu butter and served with zucchini pickle and blueberry chutney.
Then it’s a muffin filled with a fried egg, gouda, shallot chimichurri and jalapeno relish that makes my mouth buzz with such tangy heat that an appreciative pause is needed between bites.
We down the roast chicken sandwich – Ackermans’ favourite for his own lunch – its flavours whooshing from blue cheese, macadamia, more chimichurri and confit garlic ranch.
But, boy, the Reuben is a real marvel. Packed with Blackmore wagyu, apple and celery kraut, coffee mustard and Monterey Jack cheese, it’s meaty, crunchy, melty and plain majestic.
The space is an oasis of handcrafted goodness. Between paintings of avocados and oranges, shelves are lined with pickles, relishes, chutneys and ferments. Customers, some fresh off the Seaforth-to-Manly bus stopping at the door, eat hash browns dappled with herb salt and fat salad sandwiches stuffed with beetroot relish, lime-pickle aioli, sauerkraut and pickled fennel. Ceramic bowls and plates are made by local artists.
Ackermans’ lightbulb moment for a career in pickling came when he created a blueberry chutney while head chef at The Herring Room in Manly and customers kept asking to take it home. Through working Serva’s front counter, the owner-chef discovered a new joy: chatting with customers.
“After years of being hidden away as a chef, the biggest surprise is how much of a relationship I’ve developed with the locals in Seaforth,” he says. “As I’m making sandwiches for people, they’re asking about how I make the pickles, what are the benefits of ferments and so forth. It’s been really eye-opening.
“If you told me when I first opened eight months ago that the main part of my day would be remembering people’s names and having a conversation for about six hours with different people, I would have been very surprised.”
And while pickle juice is not on the drinks menu, Ackermans is right behind fermented food being a healthy option.
“I’m eating my pickles seven days a week,” he says, “and I’m definitely the healthiest I’ve ever been.”
Three more pickle-forward sandwich spots to try
Small’s Deli
A tiny wood-panelled inner-city bolthole featuring sandwiches laced with fennel, red onion and radish pickles and lashings of fermented chilli and garlic mayo. There’s also a bonanza of house-made take-home fermented goods, including the chef’s Hotluck Vegan Mushroom XO made with fermented mushrooms, black garlic, leeks and lots of chilli.
166 Victoria Street, Potts Point, smallsdeli.com.au
Lucky Pickle
A pickle sandwich institution in Surry Hills since 2014, Lucky Pickle opened its super-cute Ultimo offshoot in 2023. The sandwich star is the chicken katsu with pickled cucumber, cabbage, mayo and ultra-zingy cardamom, peanut and gochugaru-infused chilli-crisp oil.
509 Crown Street, Surry Hills and 52B Harris Street, Pyrmont, luckypickle.com.au
Berta’s Deli
Opening this week, Berta’s Deli is all about sandwiches, with a bonanza of house-made pickles and relishes between deli meats from Whole Beast Butchery up the road. Get your sauerkraut fix with the pastrami sanger, layered with Swiss cheese and a Russian dressing.
100B Sydenham Road, Marrickville, instagram.com/bertasdeli
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
