The first thing the new owners of faded Woollahra gem the Wine Library did was dump fish fingers from its menu.

The next item on their list is the introduction of bookings, and late this year, the Wine Library will usher in a 30-seat private dining room on its first floor.

Sam Jones and Matt Taylor met at bar-raising Potts Point venue, Monopole, and this month snapped up the Wine Library with a third partner, Tim Perlstone, the former Merivale rising star who took out the 2018 Australian Ruinart Sommeliers Challenge.

Jones hopes to bring a little Monopole- and Merivale-style magic to the Wine Library, one of the first of Sydney's new-generation wine bars when it was opened by the Buzo team in 2010.

"They later sold it, and the original Buzo site (around the corner on Jersey Road) is still empty. We want to breathe some fresh air into the Wine Library," Jones says.

Lifting its food offering is top priority, so the fish fingers and meatballs have already been dumped for beef tartare, pork rillettes and mandarin sponge with coconut mousse.

"Brent Savage [Monopole, Bentley] really trains you about how food should be. And this is the first time the Wine Library has ever taken bookings."

Open Mon-Thur 4pm-12pm; Fri 12pm-12am; Sun 12pm-10pm.

Wine Library, 18 Oxford Street, Woollahra, 02 9368 7484.

In other news

• Light rail construction fastened the departure of Surry Hills' staples the Book Kitchen and hatted restaurant the Devonshire, while works of another kind have reportedly contributed toward a restaurant victim on the other side of Sydney Harbour. Grazeland Bar & Grill, the three-year-old restaurant that slide into the former site of MuMu Grill, shuts its doors this week. "Council work outside, which dragged out for over eight months, did not do the business any favours," owner Nicholas Farris says of his decision not to renew his lease.

• Byron Bay, you are the food gift that just keeps on giving. Chef Evan White and his partner Amelia Stokes have teamed up with the owners of Harvest Newrybar and Barrio on a new restaurant project opening in July. Chupacabra (named after the goat sucking creature in Latin American folklore) will focus on authentic coastal Mexican cuisine.