Ten Sydney CBD 2016 Openings You Should Visit

The latest Sydney restaurant to flick away the fine dining title is Neil Perry’s Rockpool Est. 1989, hasd reopened as the more ‘casual’ Eleven Bridge. July saw Neil Perry and Trish Richards announce that it was the end of an era for their flagship restaurant. After 28 years, according to Perry, the decision was made to close the highly awarded restaurant after he became fatigued with the fine dining scene. The proximity of their second Sydney venue, Rockpool Bar & Grill, which is located just around the corner, has also been spouted as a reason for the change.

In a rather quick turn around, the venue saw its final dinner service on Saturday, 30 July, and reopened in just one week as Eleven Bridge. It’s been marketed as a more casual reincarnation of the Rockpool brand. Don’t be fooled though, this is not the kind of place where you can roll in wearing ugg boots and an oversized tee. A $42 chestnut and Jerusalem artichoke pie isn’t your regular casual nosh.

Sydney Harbour’s Pullman Quay Grand has opened a new bar — and it’s tremendously luxe. Located within the Circular Quay hotel, Hacienda is a brand new ‘vista bar’, taking inspiration from Cuba’s grandiose, plantation-style architecture and the vintage hotels of 1950’s Miami.

Applejack Hospitality — whose venues include Bondi Hardware, The Butler and Della Hyde — have teamed up with AccorHotels to pull off this stylish throw-back “botanical oasis” of a space. And it’s stunning. The harbourside space is filled with luxurious, pastel lounge furniture, brass details and lush roof greenery, all surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows which showcase panoramic views of the city, the bridge and Sydney Harbour. Plus, they can all open to create a terrace-like feel.

It might have been a while between drinks for you at The Edinburgh Castle. If fact, you might have yet to visit the Castle in your time. But this week, we’ve got plenty of reason to head to this long-time CBD pub on the corner of Pitt and Bathurst — it’s reopened after a huge revamp by Solotel. Feast on a Henry Lawson-inspired menu created by ex-North Bondi Fish chef Daniel Lanza and choosing from a 100 percent Aussie wine list curated by expert sommelier Matt Dunne.

Luchetti Krelle (Momofuku Seiobo, Bar Brose, ACME, Barrio Cellar, The Butler) took care of the design, refurbishing the ground level bar and totally revamping the first floor, while keeping — and emphasising — the building’s heritage features. There’s now a beautiful cocktail lounge and an outdoor courtyard — this ain’t no run-of-the-mill city pub.

Kittyhawk, the latest venue from the team behind The Lobo Plantation, is finally bombs away. Located in the CBD, this French military-inspired bar serves up custom cocktails and Parisian street food so good they deserve a freakin’ medal.

Taking its name from a US fighter jet, Kittyhawk takes you back to the historic French liberation, when US and French troops celebrated liberté, egalité and fraternité on the streets of Paris. Inside this little time capsule on Phillips Lane, you’ll find walls decorated with original wartime posters and memorabilia, while an impressive 12-metre-long handcrafted American oak bar serves over 900 spirits. Yep, you guessed it — it’s time to party like its 1944.

Mercado takes homemade to a new level. It’s the newest Spanish-inspired addition to the Ash Street laneway in Angel Place, right beside newcomer Indu. The ‘everything from scratch’ mentality is no surprise from head chef Nathan Sasi (ex-Nomad), who just opened Potts Point’s Good Times Ice Cream with the same motto earlier this year.

Inspired by Barcelona’s La Boqueria market, Mercado is focused around preserved and smoked smallgoods. To name a few, Mercado is making breads, preserves and cured and smoked meats all in house, along with condiments like house-made ‘everything’ vinegar and salt cod lemon mayonnaise.  They’re even wheeling around a cheese trolley of both homemade and imported varieties.

Traditionally, winter isn’t a good time to open a restaurant in Sydney. As soon as the temperature drops and the rain starts its relentless tyranny, you’re more likely to find Sydneysiders holing up at their local pub rather than risking it at somewhere new. Unless, of course, you’re opening one with a Nordic theme — then it seems only fitting. So while everyone else was figuring out how to hibernate for the wet season, the team behind Norsk Dor decided to capitalise on the seasonal change and open a Nordic-style basement restaurant in the Sydney CBD.

Winter poses its own barriers for getting out of the house (like, y’know, blankets), but, even so, Norsk Dor isn’t exactly making it any easier. Not only is the restaurant essentially unmarked — save for a solitary security person on Pitt Street — but locating the actual door of Norsk Dor requires a climb down a flight of stairs, a traipse along an uninspiring corridor and a turn to the right. Then you’ll have to press the buzzer to be let in. But as soon as that door opens, you’ll be glad you persisted; inside is a long space that is both warm and well-designed, cosy but still well within cool bar territory.

For fans of Mike McEnearney’s now defunct Kitchen by Mike, No. 1 Bent Street may come as a surprise. This time, we’re offered a little more luxury — that is, menus to peruse at our own pace and a healthy serve of table service. But while Bent Street retains the chef’s penchant for seasonal and shareable fare, punters shouldn’t expect quite the same level of ‘togetherness’ that was dished up at McEnearney’s former Rosebery digs.

The menu here is ever-evolving based on “what is best and most brilliant at the markets on any given day”; suppliers aren’t singled out nor favoured, meaning diners can expect a different offering each time they visit. On the night of our visit, the lineup features a selection of ‘smalls’ and ‘bigs’ dominated by the winter warmers — pork belly, beef cheek pie, and steak bordelaise — we’ve come to expect during Sydney’s colder months. 

If you haven’t heard Sydney frothing over Restaurant Hubert, you’ve been living under a rock. Opened in March 2016, it’s the first full-service restaurant from the Swillhouse Group, known for their elaborately themed drinking dens, The Baxter Inn, Frankie’s and Shady Pines Saloon.

From the moment you open the door, Hubert will hurtle you headfirst into a C.S. Lewis-style adventure, taking you from dreary Bligh Street to the resplendent old-world opulence of post-war Paris. It’s like an adult’s version of Narnia, only this time there’s steak and wine.

Tired of only having sugary, soulless mixers to pick from in Sydney bars? PS40 might have a solution to that, having opened the newest bar concept by the creators of PS Soda, an all-natural soda line. This warehouse gem is well-hidden down Skittle Lane and designed with a modern and bright fitout.

“Instead of an open cellar door, we have an open soda door,” says co-founder Michael Chiem (ex-Sokyo, Bulletin Place and the Star’s Black by Ezard). Along with business partner Thor Bergquist (ex-Experimental Cocktail Club (ECC) and Der Raum) and creative director Livia Lima (ex-Maud), it’s an all-star crew behind this factory’s curtain. All PS sodas are sourced from local, native produce and made with community input at that; Archie Rose Distillery helped to develop the tonic that would complement their gin and LP’s Quality Meats‘ Luke Powell helped create the lemonade.

Well, if another small bar didn’t just pop up on Clarence Street. In this part of world it’s hard to find an unmarked door which doesn’t hide an elaborately themed drinking den. So what separates newcomer Easy Eight from its neighbours The Baxter Inn and The Barber Shop? A seriously slick food menu curated by some of the city’s most talented fine dining chefs, that’s what. Now where do I line up?

Easy Eight is the much anticipated second release by the Mojo Record Bar crew. The kitchen lineup stars Harry Stockdale-Powell (ex-Rockpool, Marque) and Jack Bathurst (ex-Sepia, Toko, Becasse), who have produced an accessible, shareable menu with just a hint of Cajuna flava. Here’s some advice for you: don’t wait until your seventh beer until you order food. Trust me, this is one meal you will want to remember — and it would be a damn shame if it ended up all over the pavement.