Three hospitality talents and long-time friends have come together to launch their first restaurant – and Ennui just happens to be located inside a two-storey Heritage-listed building in Sydney’s Haymarket.
Thomas Bromwich, Samuel Woods, and Peter Chan have worked at The Bentley Group, The Love Tilly Group, Hartsyard, and Stillwater, with each member of the team spending years learning from the best hospitality professionals.
The three decided it was high time to go it alone and open Ennui, a restaurant and bar that combines their collective experience in the industry and aims to make eating and drinking mindfully more approachable.
“We wanted to do something different, somewhere that’s refined yet affordable and
run completely independently,” says Bromwich.
“We’re putting in the extra effort in the kitchen and the bar so our guests can eat and drink sustainable Australian ingredients without the prices being prohibitively expensive, all the while reopening a part of Sydney’s historic architecture to the public for the first time in many years.”
Bromwich and Woods aren’t sticking to any parameters when it comes to culinary influences, with techniques and flavour profiles from Japan, Thailand, France, and China recreated with produce sourced from Newcastle Greens, Block 11, Stix Farm, and Mussett Holdings.
An example of the approach is a duck dish that has been years in the making, with Woods describing it as a “cross between Peking duck and duck a l’orange”.
Other launch plates cover steamed Pacific oysters with Champagne sauce and finger lime; eclairs stuffed with chicken liver parfait; and Szechuan pepper-crusted wallaby.
These dishes will all be available at the upstairs restaurant, with the downstairs space dedicated to a bar offering which will have its own snack menu.
Rare whiskies from Chan’s own collection form part of the drinks offering alongside signature drinks designed by former Earl’s Juke Joint Bartender Kiaran Bryant.
There will be a highball made with Suntory Kabukin whisky, mezcal, pineapple, and maple soda and a Banana Milk Punch, a dark rum drinkthat’s a riff on a New York Sour.
Ennui is slated to launch in late August, with the venue operating for dinner Tuesday to Saturday and lunch on Thursday and Friday.
Official opening date to come.
