Sydney’s newest food and drink precinct has emerged from scaffolding on the Surry Hills Redfern-edge of Cleveland and Baptist Streets. Wunderlich Lane has drawn in some of the city’s most respected operators to transform what was once the site of a supermarket into an eating and drinking hub.
Olympus leads the charge, as the latest restaurant from the team behind Sydney’s The Apollo and Cho Cho San and Brisbane’s Greca and Yoko. Owner and operator Jonathan Barthelmess has lured Ozge Kalvo (Baba’s Place and Ester) to lead the kitchen, overseeing a vast but focused menu. It’s an ode to Greek food, from the mountains to the sea, with dishes including grilled sardines, king prawn saganaki, milk-fed lamb and wood-roasted quail. Shared dishes are best joined by an abundance of mezedes including dolmades, dips, pickled vegetables and pita. The 200-person restaurant isn’t so much a room, but a light-strewn atrium, with a bougainvillea as its centrepiece. Custom Dinosaur Designs Aegean-blue water jugs, dark timber klismos chairs and Alex and Trahanas-designed uniforms all dial up the cool factor while maintaining charm.
House Made Hospitality (Tilda, Promenade Bondi Beach, Lana and Martinez) round out a very busy opening spree with the addition of Island Radio. Southeast Asian food is the go here, with executive chef Andrianto “Andy” Wirya hopping over from House Made’s Bondi Beach venue Easy Tiger. At the entrance there’s a fast and casual counter where walk-ins can pick up noodle bowls for lunch and roti-toasties in the morning. The back section offers a more formalised (but still fun) eating house, with a focus on Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Filipino eats. Snack on spanner crab curry puffs, sate skewers threaded with LP’s smoked ox tongue, duck lumpia (Filipino-style spring rolls) and a spicy take on steak tartare. Mains are best made for big groups: think babi guling (Balinese-style roast pork); or a rendang-inspired short rib cap. Drinks get a tropical island-bend with a focus on pandan, coconut and pineapple-lead tipples. House Made will also soon open Baptist Street Rec Club to complement the ground floor venue.
LuMi Dining’s talented Federico Zanellato is also behind pizzeria and aperitivo spot Regina La Pizzeria; and Gelato Messina is also scooping up with a new store. Alongside the throng of restaurants, you’ll also find Saardé (a swish homewares and perfume house) and The Parlour Room (a beauty salon); plus an expansive Harris Farm Market.
Still to come: a new omakase, dubbed R by Raita Noda, will open in the coming months. And Wunderlich Lane’s centrepiece – a new The Eve hotel and its two restaurants operated by Liquid and Larder – will open in February.
To celebrate Wunderlich Lane’s opening, we are hosting an exclusive one night only reader dinner with SilverSea Cruises at Olympus. Get your tickets here.
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