Overview
Themed restaurants are a hard beast to master. Go too broad and you end up with a gaudy monstrosity that may one day fade into kitschiness, but go too niche and you might strangle the market. But the best themed restaurants are the ones where you don’t even realise there is a theme, which is exactly the deal with Restaurant Hubert.
Sydney’s newest restaurant is coming to you from the mighty Swillhouse group (The Baxter Inn, Frankie’s Pizza, Shady Pines Saloon) and is set to open early February on Bligh Street. The theme? That elusive feeling you get when you’re waiting to enjoy something. Weird right? Bear with us.
According to the Swillhouse group and reported by Australian Bartender, the place is designed to feel cramped, claustrophobic and gnarly; more like the bar where you wait for your table than the dining room itself. The theme, we suppose, is that delicious feeling of anticipation. Hubert's design aims to create a sense of movement and be a social place where people can eat and meet. Perhaps not so appropriate for an intimate, romantic dinner for two but certainly an excellent idea for every other social occasion.
The menu is still to be determined, but will reportedly be "French-ish" and the whole vibe entirely European (think jazz, think wood, think burgundy leather). And as with all of the Swillhouse venues — especially The Baxter Inn — there’s a big emphasis on tasty booze. At Hubert, wine is king. The same flair for the dramatic that makes Baxter's basement whisky den so enchanting will be carried over in the form of a wine balcony (aren’t all balconies wine balconies though?) that you can send your sommelier scuttling up to retrieve your choice of nectar.
Restaurant Hubert, you’ve certainly piqued our interest; we can’t wait to see what you’ve got.
Find Restaurant Hubert at 15 Bligh Street, Sydney. Opening early February.
Via Australian Bartender. Image: Dollar Photo Club.