New Bellingen restaurant from the owners of Newtown's Bloodwood

• Review: Bloodwood Restaurant and Bar

Newtown's Bloodwood restaurant is about to go bush, its owners snaring a piece of prized regional New South Wales restaurant real estate. They have nabbed Bellingen's Oak Street Food & Wine, taking possession mid-January with plans to rename the restaurant Popla.

Bloodwood designer Matt Woods will also make the trek north, crafting new interiors for the restaurant. Oak Street is restaurant royalty in the Bellingen area, snaring two hats in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide when it operated as No. 2 Oak Street under the Urquhart family.

Ray Urquhart decided to move on after the death of his wife and business partner, Toni, in 2013 and it has traded successfully in recent years with a new name and new operators.

Bloodwood restaurant manager Amanda Cleal says Mitch Grady and Claire Van Vuuren have been on the hunt for a side project for some time, and while Grady will relocate, it will be business as usual at Bloodwood with the existing team taking up the slack.

"They take possession January 11; will give it some love then relaunch in March or April," Cleal says.