Sydney - meet Wilmer, the new Italian pop-up by the team from Alfio's

Here's another reason to look forward to the start of summer this week - Wilmer will open in Kings Cross on Thursday December 1.

Wilmer reunites chefs Daniel Johnston (Vini, Restaurant Hubert) and Harry Levy (Bar Brosé), who last worked together at Alfio's. You might remember that great little pop-up: Alfio's ran from late 2014 to mid-2015 in an endearingly daggy '70s-ish restaurant of the same name in Leichhardt. Like Alfio's, Wilmer is a project by Full Circle, the team behind guerilla culinary events like The Eat-In (a secret restaurant that unfolded in the last months of a Chippendale building's lifespan, before it got demolished), random soup parties in parks and dinners in the back lot of Opera Australia.

Their new pop-up takes over the not-so-'70s-ish space left by Wilbur's Place, Bourke Street Bakery's casual eatery on Llankelly Place.

So will there be a connection between Wilmer and Wilbur's Place? "We've decided that Wilmer is Wilbur's aunty," says Harry Levy.

If that's the case, she's from the southern Italian side of the family, as Wilmer will be a trattoria that's welcome to solo diners with pasta cravings as well as groups that want to take over a table and order a feast.

"There'll probably be some old Alfio's classics, but it's been about a year and a half since me and Dan have cooked together and sometimes we'll shoot each other a text late at night and swap some dish ideas," says Levy. So they've blitzed back and forth suggestions of serving skirt steak with broad beans and anchovy butter, house-made bread and butter, fresh ricotta, grilled fish with lemon on the side, pork chops in burnt butter, and extruded pasta. "Maybe a malloreddus with clams, cherry tomatoes and breadcrumbs," says Levy. "We have an extruder on the way from Italy, it probably won't get here in time for the opening, so for the start we'll probably have to use our thumbs."

He also hopes Dan will revive his signature panna cotta (you might remember its headlining days on Vini's dessert menu - the Wilmer version could get updated with peach and cookie crumbs).

"Me and Dan both separately went to the same trattoria in Lecce [in southern Italy] and had the same pasta, ceci e tria (chickpeas and pasta). That'll go on one of the menus for sure," says Levy. "It sounds boring, but it's delicious."

One big difference between Wilmer and its previous Full Circle incarnations is that it's a la carte, and not a set menu. "We're also fully licensed, so no BYO. We've tried to make the wine list as cheap as possible," says Levy. "We're gonna have a white and a rosé on tap from Sparrow and Vine which will be around eight or nine bucks a glass. Tim from Manon has knocked us up a house red, which we're super excited about."

Wilmer's neighbours at Room 10 will also brew filter coffee for them to serve, but "it'll probably mainly get drunk by staff", jokes Levy.

They'll probably need the caffeine buzz, as the two chefs have only given themselves 12 days to get Wilmer up and running. And Wilmer itself won't be around for too long, either - it's now just a summer-only pop-up.

"But if we're having fun and it feels like it isn't time yet, we have the option to continue month by month if we want. Alfio's was supposed to go for six months and we ended up going for nine."

Open Monday to Saturday, 5:30pm to 10pm.

36 Llankelly Place, Kings Cross, 0401 829 216, restaurantwilmer.com.au