Sydney fine diner The Bridge Room to close its doors

The rapidly shrinking list of fine dining Sydney restaurants is about to get even smaller, with The Bridge Room set to shut its doors at the end of April.

The closure of the exacting two hat CBD restaurant will also call time on the business partnership of its operators, Ross and Sunny Lusted, and their co-owner in the restaurant venture, the Leon Fink chaired Fink Group, which own Quay restaurant.

Sydney has been ravaged at the top end of dining in recent years, with a posse of restaurants including Marque, Eleven Bridge, Gastro Park and Sepia closing their doors. The Lusted duo are two of the savviest restaurant operators in Australia and are known to have been shopping for new sites for several years. While massive building works around The Bridge Room is sure to have played a part in the closure, the duo is already drawing up plans for their next restaurant venture, which will open in early 2021.

When it opened its doors in 2011, the accolades and awards started to roll in. And kept rolling. The Bridge Room won The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year in 2016 and Lusted was named Chef of the Year in 2014. The restaurant, where the chef's menu sets diners back $185, has been a pace-setter for Sydney dining.

"It's not going to be Bridge Room two, but at the moment I'm no in a position to say what it is," Sunny Lusted told Good Food.

While the Lusteds and Leon Fink all praised their working relationship over the past eight years, Sunny Lusted confirmed they'll have a new business partner when they open in "one of Sydney's most exciting precincts" in 2021.