Food in focus at Newtown newcomer Raven's Eye

When it comes to Sydney small bars and menus, the food has often felt like a token gesture. But the next generation of operators are putting as much thought into the cuisine as the cocktail list.

When Raven's Eye, the latest venture from the crew behind Henrietta Supper Club and Bondi's Neighbourhood, opens Wednesday on King Street, Newtown, its American-style Italian menu will serve pork and fennel meatballs with spaghetti, as well as spaghetti vongole.

Co-owner Simon McGoram believes there's a shift in the market, with the days of the token hot dog numbered.

"Food is a great way to get people in, and keep them there. You don't have to be a place where people have one drink and then leave to go and eat somewhere else. Raven's Eye is very much a bar/restaurant, and it's what people want. We are finding more and more if you put a photo of a cocktail on social media you get a couple of clicks; put a photo of a dish up and it goes crazy," McGoram explains.

Small bar pioneer Matt Swieboda, owner of Love Tilly Devine, opens a new venue next week, Waterman's Lobster Co at Potts Point.

Swieboda says there's a new type of venue coming through and they are difficult to categorise. "Customers like places where they ask themselves 'is it a bar or a restaurant?'."

McGoram, pictured with co-owners Eddie De Souza, Anthony Hughes, Keith Hodgson and Josh Franco, says Raven's Eye takes its name from the Mafia hangout in the film Donnie Brasco. Raven's Eye will bring a "mid 20th-century American-Italian vibe" to the former site of King Street's Vui Va Say Vietnamese restaurant.