Contemporary Italo-Australian restaurant and wine bar, Bar Lettera is a welcome addition to North Sydney’s already booming dining scene, the new spot located within the Citadines Walker North Sydney hotel and headed up by chef Ryan Perry, formerly of Sydney favourites The Bridge Room and Momofuku Seiobo.
Designed by Sophie Jordan of Jordan Design Studio, the curated space celebrates the relationship between fine art and fine food, paying homage to Australian landscapes and local artistic heritage. The muse for the restaurant was Theodora Cowan, the country’s first female sculpturist who also lived in North Sydney.
With a brief to “design a restaurant and bar on the fifth floor of a hotel, aiming to attract both the general public and hotel guests”, Jordan — in a nod to Theodora Cowan — underpinned the artist’s soul to the space creating what feels like a modern-day artist’s apartment, the studio director going on to explain how “the rounded forms of ceramic sculptures are juxtaposed with strong marbles and raw Australian hardwoods across the dining room and bar. Hard and structured stone surfaces at ground level become softer as the eye rises to give the space a lighter feel.”
The food offerings at Bar Lettera include heirloom salad with kombu oil and Geraldton wax; pork cotoletta alla Milanese with mustard; rigatoni with Wollemi duck ragu and Davidson plum gin; and ocean trout and cobia crudo with Calabrian chilli and preserved lemon. The drinks menu features classic cocktails made with local spirits, and a wine list which covers a plethora of Australian and European bottles.
A new place for good food and fun times in North Sydney, Bar Lettera fuses forward-thinking cuisine with art-inflected interiors.
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Bar Lettera Sydney Photography, courtesy Jordan Design Studio.
