From the Love, Tilly Devine crew, the wine traces a similarly organic and natural arc, but with the spotlight more on France than here, while the wine bar fare has now been ratcheted up to accommodate an audience more ready to dine – snacking and sipping is welcome too.
Dear Sainte Éloise is the French-centred foil to Love, Tilly Devine’s Australian bent. Matt Swieboda and Nate Hatwell (the pair co-own both venues, along with Ragazzi and Fabbrica) have created a 550-strong wine list focusing on organic and biodynamic producers who work with as little winemaking intervention as possible. Here, though, French wine makes up half the list, while the other half is devoted to a broad-ranging selection from here and around the world, with sommelier Felix Auzou now sharing the curation role with Swieboda. There’s a by-the-glass list of about 25 – plus saké and fortifieds – with new or featured wines chalked up daily.
Safe to say that wine is front and centre here, but the menu covers snacks through entrée, mains, dessert and cheese. There’s also a low-waste, sustainable undercurrent, with whole animals being sourced, rather than just specific cuts. Their butcher then dry ages the meat and sends over what they need on a daily basis. Like the wine, all the produce is organic or biodynamic, except for the rare exception.
There was always a feed-me option here, but there is now also a $75 set menu for those more intent on dining. Here, pan-Asian ingredients nestle into the Euro-leaning carte.
A recent renovation has seen the main room refreshed, with leather banquettes and Venetian plaster luxing up the space, while the dining room can now spill out into the laneway courtyard, perfect for long lunches and dinners in the favourable Sydney climate. “We opened Dear Sainte Éloise in 2017 as a wine bar, but it has evolved into a fully-fledged dining destination,” says Swieboda. That food focus may be sharing a bit more of the limelight with the wine, but the venue is just as welcome to the casual visitor.
A Sydney icon perched over Bondi Beach, Icebergs is built for both special occasion dining and fun times, with seats at the bar or on the sundrenched terrace a more accessible way to take in its charms, along with the vast wine list – or perhaps just a cocktail or two.
After falling in love with Byron Bay, James Audas and Tom Sheer initially decided to open a natural wine shop – Venue Luna Wine Store – but were then inspired by its instant success to also open a combined wine bar and restaurant, directly opposite the shop. The new venue, Bar Heather, which opened in 2022, drew inspiration from all of the owner’s favourite venues from around the world. Parisian bars were definitely an influence, but Bar Heather’s point of difference is its very particular focus.
Amongst a happily crowded field that has been redefining the culinary landscape in this country, Mat Lindsay has stood out somewhat since the opening of his ground-breaking restaurant Ester in 2013. Working with the very back-to-basics essential of today’s chef–fire–he has forged (pardon the pun) a singular path of deceptively simple and visually exquisite dishes…
Please sign in or create account as candidate to bookmark this job
Please sign in or create account to save this search
Please sign in or create account as candidate to create a resume
