This Sydney restaurant has no name – and no chef (yet)

There's more building than dining going down in Sydney's upmarket Paddington. And while chef Phil Wood is eyeing a spring opening at Ursula's Paddington, up the hill the reboot of the site that was Lucio's for nearly 40 years is almost finished.

There's one problem. Two if you count the lockdown. The restaurant, which was to have been called Kalsa, is almost ready, but its Sicilian-raised chef Dionisio Randazzo, has left the start-up before it started up.

The restaurant is backed by brothers Leigh, Brendan and Mark McPherson, the well-heeled former operators of Regatta at Rose Bay.

A spokesman for the restaurant confirmed Randazzo's departure and said it will ditch the Kalsa name.

"We're currently a restaurant without a chef or a name," the spokesman says.

Already an iconic Sydney restaurant site with an affluent catchment, it now now boasts a fresh design and new private dining room.