These harbourside suburbs are booming with delicious new venues

After a boom year in 2023 for Sydney restaurant openings, many industry observers expected a pause in action in the new year as we digested our new offerings. It looks like the city’s eastern suburbs didn’t get the memo, however, with at least three new venues already opening for business.

Martina is the offspring of Marta, restaurateur Flavio Carnevale’s chefs’ hatted osteria in Rushcutters Bay. He chose the Martina site – which sits at the harbour end of O’Sullivan Road – after he noticed a gap in the market on his regular walk in Rose Bay.

“There were plenty of upmarket restaurants, but nowhere to stop for a coffee, or a [more casual] meal,” Carnevale says. “The locals are so excited.” Martina’s bakery opens on Thursday, January 25, with the osteria and pizzeria side of the business to follow with a mid-February launch.

Carnevale has squeezed a lot into a 120-square-metre space where a Japanese restaurant used to trade. When it is up and firing on all cylinders, it’ll serve Roman-style rectangular pizza slices by the day (hello, mozzarella and fig). “We’ll go oval [pizzas] at night. And there’ll be lots of pastas.”

Chef Faheem Noor also knows the Rose Bay market well. As executive chef at Empire Lounge, the waterfront eatery at the Sydney Seaplanes base, he studied the habits of local clientele. Noor previously ran the kitchen at Pelicano in Double Bay, the suburb where he’ll dip his toe back in the water as co-owner at the new Bartiga restaurant, which opens on Friday, January 26.

“Rose Bay is a more mature market that likes the classics, Double Bay is a younger crowd that wants exciting [venues],” Noor says. His opening menu at Bartiga certainly reads a little like a mystery thriller: tom yum scampi spaghettini; poached bug roll with red curry pesto; and the ingredients of the Asian street-food staple, chicken rice, folded through house-made focaccia.

“Rose Bay is a more mature market that likes the classics, Double Bay is a younger crowd that wants exciting [venues].”

Chef Faheem Noor

Noor, who has Tetsuya’s on his CV and worked for chef Gordon Ramsay in London, explains he’s tapping his Malaysian heritage with the Bartiga menu. The restaurant’s Australia Day launch will also see the unveiling of a duck rendang sausage roll.

Located on the corner of Short and Bay streets, Bartiga slides into the former site of Cafe Perons, which his partner in the restaurant, Charlie Kelly, knows well. His family ran it for 42 years before passing the baton.

The local institution closed late last year for a major refurbishment, overseen by designer Andretti Fung, before the Bartiga launch. “Everyone knows Charlie, he was born here,” Noor says.

Former Pelicano mixologist Vincent Valliere will shake cocktails with a South-East Asian bent, while Alex Cameron (ex Franca) has curated Bartiga’s wine list.

Just up the hill from Bartiga, Tanuki opened last week on Bay Street. Head chef Ken Wee Lee (ex Sushi e, Zuma) is pumping out Alaskan king crab with truffle gratin in the sprawling site where Mrs Sippy and Mexican restaurant Sinaloa previously traded.

Contemporary Japanese-inspired spot Tanuki is the latest venue from Eddie Levy and Adam Abrams, who own Matteo restaurant a few doors away. “Double Bay is back to the days of being a hub again,” Levy says. “I don’t think there’s another suburb like it, a village with a cosmopolitan feel.”

Levy grew up in Sydney’s east and witnessed Double Bay’s identity crisis when Westfield Bondi Junction opened, Double Bay’s cinema closed and for lease signs appeared. Levy and Abrams were part of the new brigade when they opened Matteo six years ago, ushering in period of growth that also saw the arrival of Neil Perry’s Margaret restaurant.

“Double Bay has a really good mix of clientele,” Levy explains. And they’ve evidently already picked their favourites on the Tanuki menu. “It’d be the wagyu tartare and the scallop and prawn toast,” Levy says.

Martina, 51-55 O’Sullivan Road, Rose Bay

Bakery open daily 8am-3pm

Bartiga, corner of Short and Bay Streets, Double Bay

Open dinner daily (lunches to follow in March)

Tanuki, 37 Bay Street, Double Bay

Open Wed-Fri 5.30pm-midnight; Sat noon-midnight; Sun noon-10pm