It’s here, folks. After almost two years of anticipation and several months of setbacks, Le Foote will welcome its first guests later this week. It’s the hottest Sydney restaurant opening of the year so far, and potentially the most exciting place to eat in The Rocks since Quay.

With capacity for up to 425 guests across multiple levels and rooms, Le Foote is also the most ambitious project to date from Swillhouse, the hospitality group behind Restaurant Hubert in the CBD and Alberto’s Lounge, Surry Hills.

Swillhouse chief executive Anton Forte describes the new premises as a “Mediterranean grill”, but that’s a bit of an undersell. If Hubert is a post-war party bistro, and Alberto’s is a backstreet bolthole for Italo-Oz good times, Le Foote is a long lunch that becomes dinner in Capri.

“We want the vibe to be like the famous garden restaurants of Europe,” says Forte. “A beautiful, warm space with lots of greenery, old pots and art.”

Swillhouse took the keys to the site in 2021, and the historic George Street building (formerly Phillip’s Foote restaurant) has been undergoing a redesign and renovation ever since.

It was supposed to reopen last summer, but, as is often the case with heritage sites, there was always something else that needed to be fixed, or more rotting timber to be replaced. Le Foote is also a big place with many moving parts.

The wine bar

The simple black-on-bone-white facade looks like an ancient pub, complete with curtains made from old bridal lace. There are a few al fresco tables opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the potential to serve drinks and snacks to 100 punters (although the plan is to start with 50 street-side seats for now).

Inside, the wine bar feels like a decades-old Mediterranean osteria. European travel posters and mid-century prints make the front room pop, and many artworks are from the personal collection of Forte and his wife, artist Allie Webb. Vintage coasters frame the bar, advertising Smirnoff, Dewar’s, Harp Lager and St Agnes Brandy.

Charcoal portraits by Webb hang in the upstairs section, where Forte says you can drop in anytime, grab a small table, and order a few snacky things and a bottle or glass. “I feel like every wine bar ends up being a one-hat restaurant,” he says, “but we want this to have a super casual vibe.”

The restaurant

Through the wine bar, past a small courtyard and terracotta vases, is Le Foote’s formal dining room, which seats about 50 guests, with another 10 spots at the bar. The tables are double-clothed. The waiters wear bow ties. Classical Italian guitar plays in the background – the kind of music you expect to hear while surrounded by grapevines and drinking grappa.

The sun-dappled space is semi-al-fresco (and heated in winter), and the plan is for vines to grow and creep around the room over time. The most striking feature is a mural custom-made near Rome, with each tile shipped to Sydney and reassembled like a puzzle.

“Allie did [an artist’s] residency in Italy, at a town called Civita Castellana,” says Forte. “There’s a ceramist there, Mastro Cencio, and the owner makes Etruscan-style pottery. We always wanted a mural, and I loved the tiles on his shopfront. I didn’t think he would do it for us, but we explained the concept, and he was like ‘OK’. The commission took five months to complete.”

The food

Stefano Marano leads the kitchen, and after years as head chef of Potts Point Greek crowd-pleaser The Apollo, he knows his way around a grill. A hulking Josper oven informs much of the dining room menu, charcoal-grilling sides of beef to share with house-made salsa and pickled onions. “The whole fish is amazing, too,” says Forte, “just super light and fresh.”

Other early menu highlights include scallop carpaccio with white balsamic and capers; cheese pie; roasted lamb belly; duck sausage with mustard and cress; rainbow trout with lemony avgolemono sauce; rum baba; and lemon leaf ice-cream with chantilly.

For the wine bar, expect little plates of anchovies, salami and cheese to share, and maybe a small selection of cooked dishes. “The wine bar space can seat almost 200 people, so we’re just going to start slow with the food offering and work our way up,” says Forte. “But there will be enough options that you can have a few snacks and call it a meal.”

The wine list features more than 300 unique bottles, and is built around “the interesting stuff you might drink while on holidays in Crete, Sardinia and Morocco”, says Forte, plus several Australian drops. Wine is very much the focus (there’s only one beer tap, pouring an easy-drinking pilsner) but cocktails, including a banana daiquiri and “two-sip” negroni, sound like a fine way to start or end any meal.

The exact opening date this week is yet to be announced. Initially, Le Foote will open Monday to Wednesday from 4pm to midnight, with lunch (and dinner) Thursday to Sunday. When things bed down, Forte expects the bar and restaurant to be open for lunch and dinner daily.

“We want to create something different for Sydney, but that still has a sense of place to Circular Quay,” he says. “Hopefully everyone digs it.”

101 George Street, The Rocks, swillhouse.com/venues/le-foote