Peter Conistis joins Sydney's Oxford Street revival party with new restaurant

Modern Greek food pioneer Peter Conistis is joining the Paddington party, the Alpha and Ploos chef set to open a new venue on Oxford Street.

"[The site] is just up from Saint Peter. It won't open until the end of the year, I've just got too much on my plate with Alpha and Ploos [his new restaurant at Circular Quay]," Conistis says.

The chef promises "a new concept" at the yet-to-be-named eatery. The influx of top-end food talent on the strip was a drawcard for Conistis, who remembers its cache early in his career as a dining destination.

Sydney's boom-or-bust eat street is on a bull run again, the injection in recent times of restaurants and food ventures from Merivale and Josh and Julie Niland at the Paddington end having revived a strip that a 2012 Good Food cover story listed as critically ill, with 61 real estate signs then dotting its length.

The nursery of Mod Oz cuisine fostered the early careers of chefs such as Neil Perry and Matt Moran, until a string of closures, including dining icon Claude's. But a rash of new venues – the Nilands' Saint Peter and Fish Butchery and the 2021 opening of Porcine – has seen some of that lustre return.

Merivale already has The Paddington, Fred's and Charlie Parker's on the strip, and last month Justin Hemmes doubled down on his Oxford Street play when he shelled out $9 million on a large shopfront. Could it be another hospitality venue brewing?

There's more action just off Oxford Street, on the same strip as Fratelli Paradiso spin-off 10 William. A liquor licence application has been lodged for a pint-sized wine shop with a small bar, named Notwasted, at 58 William Street.