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Is this Sydney suburb becoming the Rodeo Drive of restaurants?

Double Bay’s dining renaissance continues apace, with an incoming project by the Matteo crew, a rooftop restaurant, a Neil Perry eatery and a jazz bar in collab with the New York bar tsar behind Dante.

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Double Bay’s Bay Street continues its growing claim as the Rodeo Drive of Sydney restaurants with the arrival this week of builders to work on a slick new Japanese restaurant and bar. The strip is already home to Neil Perry’s high-end Margaret and his soon-to-arrive Asian eatery and jazz bar.

The yet-to-be-named 140-seat Japanese eatery is the latest venture by Eddie Levy and Adam Abrams, of nearby Matteo. “We’re excited about broadening our footprint in the area we’ve both grown up in,” Levy says.

The corner of Bay and Knox streets, Double Bay.
The corner of Bay and Knox streets, Double Bay.Steven Siewert

The duo plan to open two doors up the hill from their buzzy Italian restaurant just in time for summer. The Japanese bar will have its own “speakeasy”-style entrance.

Bay Street has ridden the ups and bumps of the suburb’s fortunes over the decades, but we may be in a period of positive trajectory. California-based luxury home furnisher RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) has lodged a development application to open a five-level venue topped by a rooftop restaurant at 19-27 Bay Street. It’s slated for completion by 2025.

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An artist’s impression of the Gaden House redevelopment, where Neil Perry will open a bar and Asian restaurant.
An artist’s impression of the Gaden House redevelopment, where Neil Perry will open a bar and Asian restaurant.Supplied

Perry’s Asian eatery, Song Bird, looks as if it will arrive in April 2024. It’ll be in a Neville Gruzman-designed building on the corner of Bay and Cooper streets and will include Perry’s bar, Bobbie’s. Perry has partnered with the bar tsar behind New York’s award-winning Dante, Australian-born Linden Pride.

Perry has long believed in Double Bay’s potential, even during its lull following its cinema closure and while Westfield Bondi Junction was luring shoppers away. He opened Margaret in 2021 on Bay Street, then added the more modest spin-off eatery Next Door and Baker Bleu bakery opposite the tree-edged Guilfoyle Square.

Neil Perry outside his growing Double Bay restaurant enclave.
Neil Perry outside his growing Double Bay restaurant enclave.Liz Keene

“It’s a true village at the throat of the eastern suburbs,” the chef says. “It even has its own microclimate. The wind can be howling [in Sydney], but get down here and it’s beautiful and calm.”

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Perry predicts RH will draw people from “all over Australia”. “There’s the Japanese restaurant and two more restaurant spaces, and we’ll be across the street with the Asian and the jazz bar downstairs.”

Linden Pride of New York’s Dante bar.
Linden Pride of New York’s Dante bar.Rachel Olding

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/goodfood/sydney-eating-out/is-this-sydney-suburb-becoming-the-rodeo-drive-of-restaurants-20230901-p5e17p.html