SoBar

THE VERDICT

Sydney’s rainbow of fusion style food is pretty colourful. From the gently influenced, to brave pairings, cultural mixers and more outrageous mashups—there’s a lot of intrigue, experimentation and adventure to be had.

Potts Point’s newest addition, SoBar is serving up Italian—woodfired pizza, pasta, arancini— layered with Japanese-style trimmings. It’s a bold move, pairing up two of the world’s greatest food cultures, but that’s kind of the overall vibe at SoBar: bold.

Led by Jonathan Faro, co-founder of Eastern Suburbs pizza chain Society, in partnership with Sicilian legends Dario Cannata and Omar Corona, SoBar is housed where Society Di Catania once lived. Now, red neon light drenches the space, the walls have been painted crimson and the music has been turned up. It has all the sex appeal of 90s era European nightclub, with a fiery pizza oven and an unapologetic Campari candy red glow.

The idea for Faro was, in fact, to bring a bit of the late nightlife back to Potts Point. “Potts Point used to be a cool destination for music, food and entertainment,” he says. “People would come for a good time late into the evening and make a proper night of it. We want to rekindle that—and beyond Macleay St too. We are one of the few places left with a late license, so we thought it was up to us to help Victoria St come back to life.”

SoBar’s version of Italian slash Japanese is casual, fun and tasty—as opposed to more experimental and polished players here in Sydney like LuMi and Acme. Led by chef Matteo Corno, there’s green tea spaghetti and (our favourite) Takoyaki arancini—that's arancini made with squid ink octopus. This is partnered with a full rosso and bianco pizza menu and the woodfire pizzas Society is loved for, served piping hot and packed with toppings.

On the cocktail list is a Sencha Negroni, with Tanqueray gin, Antica formula vermouth, Amaro Montenegro, Campari and bitters. There’s a Japanese spritz with added citrus, and something called Red Passion with Grey Goose and strawberry liqueur, because, according to SoBar—passion is best when red. 

Image credit: Supplied.