Alessandro Pavoni, the hatted Italian chef behind Ormeggio at The Spit and a’Mare at Crown Sydney, can’t recall a tougher time for the pointy end of dining in the two decades he’s lived in Australia.

“Premium dining is the first thing people cut off,” he says, echoing restaurateurs hit by the double blow of rising costs and consumers trimming spending due to interest rates rises.

Data from hospitality reservation platforms SevenRooms and ResDiary shows many Australians are still eating out but spending less. Data supplied by ANZ also shows household spending on dining and takeaway in early August has dropped 16 per cent over the past year, while the number of people dining out has fallen by 6 per cent over the same period.

It’s a trend Pavoni has observed at his two restaurants at the Spit. While the upmarket Ormeggio has dropped off in recent months, its less-expensive sibling eatery, Chiosco by Ormeggio, is doing bumper business.

Pavoni has joined a growing band of savvy operators following the money. From this week, he’s hived off a section of the bar area at a’Mare restaurant in Barangaroo, opening a spin-off casual 32-seat osteria called a’Mare Cucinetta.

“When customers come to a’Mare it’s more about the experience. At Cucinetta you jump in for a quick meal,” Pavoni says. “People are still eating out, and we’ll still give them quality.”

The menu showcases antipasto and aperitivo (think salumi, cheeses, olives, calamari fritti and Sydney rock oysters), and quick pastas such as busiate alla bolognese, made with wagyu that has been slow-cooked for 12 hours.

While a pasta at a’Mare can set you back by up to $79 (for a premium spaghettini all’aglio with Moreton Bay bug), here the spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino with Cantabrian Sea anchovies is a much more budget-friendly $29.

Across town at Potts Point, Opel Khan, the chef-owner at Metisse Restaurant, has felt the pinch to the extent he’s straying from the restaurant’s hard and fast degustation-only approach.

This week he introduced a three-course $130 a la carte menu, which is nearly half the price of Metisse’s standard $250 degustation.

“I’m still busy, but not like last year when we had a waiting list on Friday and Saturday nights,” Khan says.

The chef says the litmus test would be to call some of the hottest, most acclaimed high-end restaurants in town, where you previously had to book months in advance. He says you’ll now often breeze into a mid-week booking.

Khan will open a new restaurant next month, having snared the original site of Billy Kwong on Crown Street, Surry Hills.

House of Khan, he insists will be a restaurant for its time, with “incredible prices” (mains will start at $25).

“It [the menu] will be avant-garde Bangladesh … it’s very different from Indian, lighter, lots of salads,” he says.

a’Mare Cucinetta is open for lunch Wed-Mon; dinner daily

1 Barangaroo Avenue, Barangaroo, crownsydney.com.au/restaurants/amare

House of Khan will open at shop 3, 355 Crown Street, Surry Hills, in September