AND ALSO…

POWELL DOES PIZZA

Don Bocarte anchovies for $20? Or Cuca for $12? Either way, being given a tin of cured fish to drape over a marinara pizza is a special kind of pleasure. Such is life at Bella Brutta (above), the Newtown digs where Luke Powell has traded the smoker at LP’s Quality Meats for wood fire and a slow ferment. LP’s pepperoni and clams top other pizze, but the front of the menu, where ’nduja is stirred through white beans and burnt mandarin dresses leaves of radicchio, is the real highlight. Bella Brutta, 135 King St, Newtown, (02) 9922 5941

NYC BAR COMES TO TOWN

A discreet EO and neon “Psychic” sign are the only markers outside Employees Only, the Sydney offshoot of the NYC cocktail bar, but already half the city is squeezing in. Late-night might be the best time to order calamari with sauce ravigote and an Improved Margarita shaken with Cointreau and orange blossom. Chef Aurelien Girault (Nour) is also serving plates of EO Special Staff Meal to guests, while tarot reader, Nardine, is on hand to peer into your future. 9a Barrack St, Sydney

WHSKY GO, GO

Banchō, from the Tokyo Bird team, has opened near Market City, billing itself as a small bar for Chinatown. It’s not actually that small, but the food menu is limited to a few bao and deep-fried things on sticks. Japanese whisky is the go, but staff know their Scotch and new-wave Taiwanese bottles almost as well as their Chita and their Nikka Taketsuru. There are bottle lockers for regulars, and wildly addictive sticks of fried spaghetti in what we’re told is “seafood and seaweed salt”. 10 Thomas Ln, Haymarket, (02) 8097 9512