Holidays always end too soon, and it’s tempting to want to bring a little bit of the holiday experience back home with us in some way – maybe the recipe of a favourite meal from a family-run restaurant we discovered by chance, or a bottle of the local wine. Al Yazbek and his partner Rebecca Littlemore had more ambitious plans when they returned from a visit to Australia’s wine country, setting their hearts on opening up a vineyard-style “cellar door” in the city. Al’s hospitality experience meant the idea was more than just pie in the sky, and soon Nomad made its home in Sydney. The 150-seat venue offers the best wines from lesser-known regions of Australia, and a food ethos which champions traditional techniques such as curing and smoking, and even on-site cheese making.
Al and Rebecca worked with Annie Snell from Snell Architects for the warehouse conversion in Surry Hills, keeping the raw edge from its past life intact and accentuating the concrete and steel elements for a foundry vibe. The wines are proudly Aussie, and so it’s fitting that the craftsmen who shaped Nomad are too. The seating is by Ross Didier, Henry Wilson‘s A-joint joinery system was used for the tables, and local potter Malcolm Greenwood made the ceramic tableware. In the kitchen, chef Nathan Sasi is back from a stint at Heston Blumenthal’s London restaurant Dinner, so expect a big side order of innovation with those traditional cooking methods.
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