RESTAURANT NEWS
MELBOURNE
A retro Italian diner and rooftop by the Everleigh, Heartbreaker and Bar Margaux team has arrived in the CBD, bringing alfresco Spritzes, deep-pan pizza and plenty of pasta. Connie's Italian Diner
and Rooftop Terrazza is the more formal incarnation of Connie’s, which fans of the divebar Heartbreaker will already be familiar with: it started as a by-the-slice pizza shop within the bar years ago.
Now, it’s got its own digs, reopening as a 100-seat trattoria-inspired diner above Heartbreaker. That inspiration shows up in the retro space – which mashes up design elements of an old-school trattoria with an archetypal New York red-sauce joint. It’s an evocative room that instantly tells you what to expect on the menu: so uncool-they’re-cool classics served with a wink. There’s lasagne, cacio e pepe, spaghetti with clams, veal Milanese and eggplant parmigiana. If you want pizza by the slice, you’ll have to stick with Connie’s at Heartbreaker – up here, it’s all about Connie’s grandma pies: cheesy, chewy deep-pan six-slice pizze (best enjoyed with a wedge of iceberg lettuce with Gorgonzola). If the weather’s good, enjoy your drink out on the rooftop terrace. The small, leafy terrazza has a cluster of tables and bench seating.
Minimal waste is a term that gets used with wild abandon these days, but
Parcs (an anadrome for “scrap”) is a new wine bar with a laser focus on saving and fermenting produce. Last year, ex-Sunda chef Dennis Yong began crafting an experimental range of miso, garum, hot sauce, kimchi and more under the name Furrmien, and now Parcs is the 25-seat venue that lifts these ideas out of jars and interweaves them through a succinct menu of wine-favouring snacks. The “borderless” menu plucks techniques from across the world, such as Yong’s take on Lebanese flat bread with sunflower za’atar. Using the whole flower (rescued from a pick-your-own-sunflower field) the stems are baked then scraped out to form a “sunflower marrow” which is mixed with tahini, smoked and spread over fried youtiao (Chinese fried dough). Meanwhile the seeds are seasoned with powdered moromi (a soy sauce
byproduct) to make the za’atar mix. There’s also an Italian-ish “umami e pepe” – a mash-up that takes the pasta dish and subs in Hokkien-style noodles and seasons it with a bread-based miso.
Nearby, Nordic cuisine will arrive on Collins Street at Freyja, located within the 1880s heritage-listed Olderfleet building. Relocating from Norway, chef Jae Bang will create a menu focused on Northern European pickling, curing and smoking. He’ll be joined by ex-Lee Ho Fook head chef Daniel Gordon to oversee the 130-seater, which will open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Finally in more casual offerings, Sydney’s much-loved charcoal chicken shop El Jannah has opened its first Melbourne outpost, bringing Lebanese-style pickles, juicy rotisserie chooks and garlic-loaded sauce to Preston.
NEW SOUTH WALES
Ex-St John and Restaurant Hubert chef Will Elliot is executive chef at
Whalebridge, a new French-inspired restaurant from the Sydney Collective (The Morrison and Watsons Bay
Boutique Hotel). The Circular Quay waterfront restaurant will put citizens of the sea front and centre, with bouillabaisse de Marseille (featuring scampi, prawn, white fish and lobster in a saffron broth) and lobster thermidor; joined by freshly shucked oysters and caviar service. There’s also confit duck and a wagyu burger topped with raclette cheese.
Newtown is now home to an out-of-this-world Martini bar from the talented team behind Cantina OK.
Bar Planet sees co-owner and beverage director Jeremy Blackmore team up with business partners Alex Dowd and Daisy Tulley. Many drinks will be centred around an “infinite spirit”. Made in collaboration with gin distillers Poor Toms, the base spirit is a gin, flavoured with local produce (in the first batch it uses heritage apples). After this first batch of gin is almost done, the team will work on a new flavoured gin, which will be added to the existing one. Expect the same fanatical but fun service seen at Cantina OK, with interiors inspired by clashing references: think classic French bistro meets 70s psychedelia. All of this plays out across a bewitching surfboard resin-topped terrazzo bar, created by Sydney artist David Humphries.
At Forest Lodge’s Tramsheds, Palle has opened. The day-to-night diner will focus on meatballs, served in subs, atop pasta, or dished up solo. The offshoot is from the team behind Darlinghurst’s longstanding Italian restaurant A Tavola, and calls upon owner Eugenio Maiale’s Abruzzo heritage to master its meatball recipe. Alongside traditional numbers, you’ll also find other spherical snacks, including salted cod fritters and arancini-like rice balls with skordalia, plus bomboloni for dessert.
Out of town in Central New South Wales, ex-Dear Sainte Éloise chef Hugh Piper is hosting a pop-up at Antica Carcoar in June. Buena Vista Ceviche
Club will tap into his Peruvian roots, with dishes including beef tartare with aji panca (red pepper) and huacatay (black mint) cream; cod ceviche; yabby chupe (a Peruvian chowder); and slow-cooked lamb neck, coriander and white beans.