Inside Amé, Esca Group’s Newest Japanese-Peruvian Restaurant In A 1927 Darlinghurst Landmark

On one of Darlinghurst’s busiest corners, you may have noticed the stately sandstone building covered in Coming Soon signage for the past few months. Now, five years after the idea first took shape, Esca Group is preparing to open Amé, a light-filled restaurant championing Nikkei cuisine. Its roots trace back to 1899, when Japanese migrants began settling in Peru, adapting their cooking to the local ingredients available to them.

Erik Ortolani, one of Esca’s most accomplished executive chefs, has led the menu curation and direction of the kitchen from the very beginning, calling it one of the most challenging projects of his career. I sat down with him to talk about the restaurant’s origins, its historic home, and the role he hopes Ame will play in Oxford Street’s revival.

“Being at Esca, and looking after first Ito and then later Joji, I carved myself a path looking after Japanese cuisine,” Erik tells me.

“So, when the idea of creating a Nikkei concept within the company came about, it was a new challenge for me.”

For a chef born in Milan, Japanese cuisine might not seem the most conventional path. But it’s one Erik has followed over many years, from a stint at Nobu Milan to Sydney’s Cho Cho San, before joining Esca in 2023.

The idea for Amé came from Esca’s co-founder and executive director, Ibby Moubadder, who found himself searching for Sydney’s answer to Nikkei cuisine. Bringing that vision to life meant carefully balancing Japanese and Peruvian influences, a process that required plenty of consideration.

“To be honest, it was quite a challenging push and pull between trying not to go overboard with flavours, and coming back to a Japanese restraint”, Erik explains.

“In the end, we landed on this menu that doesn’t want to be fusion at all costs. It wants to be thoughtful, and ingredients need to make sense in the dish.”

The resulting menu brings together bright sauces, fresh flavours and high-quality Australian ingredients. For Erik, colour is central to Nikkei cuisine, and that thinking carries through from the food to the room itself.

There’s the vibrant guava kakigori, made with Australian guava vinegar, jelly and shaved ice, and sheer curtains in shades of red, orange and turquoise hang beneath heritage cornices, drifting gently in the breeze.

Even in the quiet lull before service, the entire room feels alive. There’s an energy that feeds in naturally from its prime positioning at the heart of Oxford Street, while the building’s old-world character draws you further inside, past cosy booths, hidden nooks and a sprawling stairway.

Since 1927, this space has lived many lives—at one time a hairdresser, before holding steady as a retail space for American Apparel. It also joins a broader revival taking shape around Oxford and Foley streets, with the likes of Mecca Coffee, Aenza and the forthcoming Soho House helping reshape the precinct.

Erik hopes Amé will find a lasting place within it, both as an anchor for the community and a destination for Sydney diners.

“I would like Amé to be very inclusive, but also to represent excellence,” Erik decides.

“I want it to be a destination for the right reasons—not just because it’s a beautiful space and building, but because of the calibre of food. Hearing people talking about it, and seeing recurring customers, that would be the dream.”

Amé will officially open for lunch and dinner service Thursday 22 October.

Image credit: Ethan Smart | Supplied