"We hope to be up and trading before the end of the year, we're just not sure when," says Nomad owner Al Yazbek of the fire that tore through his Surry Hills restaurant last week.

"Yesterday ... I flew back from Melbourne [where he is scouting sites to open a southern Nomad] but it looks worse in the bright Sydney sunlight. I can see the architects' office upstairs through the floor," he says.

While investigations continue, it is believed to have started near the wood-fired oven.

"It was burning for an hour before anyone realised," Yazbek says.

The pointy end of Sydney restaurants have had a tough few years with fires.

In 2014 a fire tore through the kitchen at Rockpool Bar & Grill mid-service, the restaurant's damage compounded by the amount of water used to douse it.

The next year, Stuyvesant's House in Crows Nest had a fire that took three hours to extinguish.

Also in 2015 staff were forced to flee Porteno restaurant in Surry Hills as thick smoke billowed from the building.