Just open: Deus Ex Machina's bar-restaurant

Former Bistro Moncur head chef Tom Walton, Bucket List founder Andy Ruwald​ and bar sage James Prier are behind a new bar-restaurant that swings opens today at Deus Ex Machina in Camperdown.

The cafe-restaurant space at the custom motorcycle mecca has been closed for months, quietly getting some fine-tuning and customising of its own. The result is a cheeky wink at the Deus product.

"There's lots of leather. We've wrapped the door handles in it, even the footrest under the bar is like the material they put around exhaust pipes," Ruwald says.

The new concrete bar top came with a bling price tag of $80,000. Walton says locals were front of mind when designing the breakfast, lunch and dinner menu. "We wanted it to be affordable and generous. There has never been table service or a bar here before," he says. "We won't do Moncur's Cafe de Paris, but there's a sirloin with a special Deus butter with paprika and anchovy." Good Food tracked down the creative and elusive Deus founder Dare Jennings at the company's Tokyo satellite operation.

"I'm a big fan of Andy [Ruwald]. Why did we choose him? I saw a slogan in Melbourne the other day that said, 'excellence in guess work'. That's very Deus."