What do you get when you mix equal parts hatted chef, a landmark Surry Hills site and the crew behind the nostalgia-fuelled city pop-up About Time? The answer is Tucano’s, which opens in early August in the former long-time home of Cafe Lounge, on Goulburn Street.

The theme is modern tropical, says Tucano’s co-owner Steve Davis. The makeover – by Studio Barbara in Alexandria – is more pastel-toned than kitschy, while the menu will add an Asian-Hawaiian influence to modern Mediterranean dishes.

Drinks will be bright, fun and fresh, featuring vermouth and amaro (think: Kiwi Daiquiri) rather than overly heavy and sweet.

In the kitchen, Naomi Lowry, the former head chef at the hatted-but-now-shuttered Biota Dining, will spin ingredients in different ways across the menu.

“There’ll be a pork cutlet with pineapple and capsicum – it’s my play on sweet-and-sour pork – and a pineapple lamington Arctic roll,” Lowry says.

Tucano’s is the latest bar to super-charge its food menu, with everyone from Luke Mangan’s upcoming Luc-San to Joel Best’s Bar Besuto upping the food game after the early years of Sydney’s bar scene regularly offered little of interest to eat.

Roman street food favourite trapizzino, a pizza pocket, will star on the opening menu and Lowry is also fine-tuning a kingfish bruschetta and Mai Tai rum baba.

Lowry has worked with local chef Danny Russo, who recently opened Italian seafood restaurant Sala in Pyrmont with Flying Fish owner Con Dedes, and had stints working with the late French chef Michel Roux Snr and Irish restaurateur Oliver Peyton, too.

At Tucano’s, she joins an experienced crew. Davis, the former general manager at Opera Bar, co-owns the start-up with a gaggle of seasoned hospitality types, including Ben Hickey and Naomi Palmer, who own and operate The Roosevelt in Potts Point.

After successfully navigating the About Time pop-up – which served Pavlova Milk Punch – the team went in search of a permanent site, landing on the Surry Hills site that housed Cafe Lounge for two decades before closing during the pandemic.

“I know it well,” Davis says. “I had a couple of birthdays here.”

Tucano’s will open at the beginning of August.

277 Goulburn Street, Surry Hills, tucanos.com.au