A new Mexican restaurant for the Cross
The old Hugo’s Pizza Bar site in King’s Cross will be turned into a Mexican restaurant.
Fei Jai and Barrio Chino restaurateurs Peter Lew and his partner, Nicole Galloway, have snapped up the site.
The new restaurant does not yet have a name but Lew and Galloway have big plans for it.
“We're in the process of bringing in a chef from Mexico City. We’ve been working closely with him to refine [the menu] and get it to where we want it to be,” Lew told Broadsheet.
The chef’s identity remains a closely guarded secret at this stage, as does the name of who exactly will be running the bar.
“I can’t talk about it now, but we’re looking to sign off a really amazing bartender. He knows mezcal and tequila really well,” Lew said.
After meeting at Hugo’s, the couple have dabbled in Mexican cuisine at their former Barrio Chino venue and they are keen to broaden it now. The difference they say is the Mexican food at Barrio Chino was Americanised.
This time, the burritos and tacos will be replaced with ceviche, grilled seafood and Mexican pizzas.
“Sydney is familiar with American-Mexican stuff: guacamole, corn, tacos, burritos. But there’s so many different layers of Mexican food. We want to look at the regional cuisines and do something a bit different,” Lew said.
“We're doing a Mexican-style pizza from Oaxaca called tlayudas. It's made with a corn masa base.”
And as he said, it’s all quite fitting when it will be done the site of an old pizza bar.
Hugo’s Pizza Bar was quite well known for their pizza back in the day, so there’s a nice story there,” he said.
So what can people expect from this as yet-unnamed venue?
“We’ll have a lot of greenery, so it will be day-friendly. Very bright but not traditional, no cliche skulls and that typical, garish Mexican stuff,” Lew said. “We'll have quite a large bar with a lot of seating but it'll be primarily a sit-down restaurant. By no means will it be formal, but not really casual, either.”
by Leon Gettler, June 28th 2017
