With its hand-painted signage, striped awnings and marble-top tables, Cafe Cressida is bringing Parisian charm to the pink Queens Court building in Woollahra.

The new cafe is the second hospitality venture from Phil Wood and Lis Davies, the restaurateur couple behind two-hatted Paddington restaurant Ursula’s. Guests can expect simple, thoughtful fare, from porridge with brown sugar, apricots and pistachios for breakfast through to cheeseburgers and cacio e pepe pasta for dinner.

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“If it’s a beautiful sunny day, I’d sit in the courtyard, drink some champagne, eat some oysters and have a plate of crab and chilli spaghetti to finish,” says Wood.

“A man came in for lunch today and then spent a couple of hours drinking pinot noir and reading the Financial Times, which was just perfect – that’s what we designed it for.”

Wood is a highly acclaimed chef who built his career in the kitchens of legendary restaurants such as Tetsuya’s and Rockpool in Sydney, The French Laundry in California, and Laura at Pt Leo Estate in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. He opened his first restaurant, Ursula’s, with wife Davies in 2021.

But Wood says he’s been dreaming of a venue in leafy Woollahra village since interviewing for The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Josephine Pignolet young chef of the year award at neighbouring restaurant Bistro Moncur in 2007.

“I remember sitting outside on one of the park benches, watching the people eating at the cafes on the sidewalk, and thinking it was such an idyllic place,” Wood says.

Over the past 18 years, Queens Court has been home to Caffe Agostini, bills and Luxe (the sites most recent cafe, which closed in September). Cressida pays homage to those who came before it with one must-order dish: Margie Agostini’s famous Sicilian-style orange cake.

“Anyone who has lived in Woollahra for over 25 years just glazes over when you mention it,” Wood says. “[Margie] was known for her home-style Italian cooking, and all the locals adored her.”

None of her dishes were so beloved as the orange cake, which received international attention when food writer Jill Dupleix described it as “the richest, moistest, butteriest … and yet lightest orange cake I have ever come across” for British newspaper The Times (coincidentally, also in 2007). It later appeared in Rick Stein’s cookbook Mediterranean Escapes.

“We’ve had so many Woollahra people excited to have it back,” Wood says, recounting one man who last week tried the cake he remembered so fondly from his childhood.

“He said it was just as good, if not better, than he remembered.”

At Cafe Cressida, Wood mans the kitchen alongside Ursula’s chef Federico Barbuto, using carefully sourced products from independent Sydney businesses such as Iggy’s Bread in Bronte and Genovese Coffee House in Alexandria.

The wine list, while short, aims to showcase the best-in-class for each variety. There’s a South Australian chardonnay from Victorian winemaker Patrick Sullivan as well as Laurent-Perrier champagne (each option available by glass or by bottle).

Each menu features illustrations of dancing croissants, champagne bottles and hamburgers hand-drawn by Brooklyn-based stationer Rebecca Ruebensaal, otherwise known as Mr Boddington.

“As the cafe is named after our little girl, we wanted it all to be very playful so champagne and croissants on legs couldn’t be more perfect,” Davies says.

Breakfast and lunch daily; dinner Thursday-Saturday

118 Queen Street, Woollahra, cafecressida.com.au