There’s a new bar upstairs at Restaurant Hubert: meet Bridge Bon-Appétit


If you’ve visited Restaurant Hubert in the Sydney CBD before, you know that you might need to wait to get a table or a spot at the bar — the place is that damn popular. Well, thankfully they’ve opened up some more space for your drinking pleasure, and it’s called Bridge Bon-Appétit.

Featuring its own dedicated wine selection, food menu and cocktail list, Bridge Bon-Appétit is the final piece of the puzzle completing Restaurant Hubert and will be a destination in its own right, thanks in no small part to the drinks offering and the talented team of bartenders led by Swillhouse beverage director James Irvine.

“Like everything that Swillhouse does, it’s dimly lit, with good music, good booze, good times — and chuck in some good food as well,” Irvine says.

There’s a short, smart list of six cocktails that go further into the contemporary realm of drinks than the classics downstairs in Hubert’s Bar Pincer.

“There’s much more of a contemporary focus,” Irvine says, “we can play around with some cool shit.”

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Take the drink Fumé, for instance, in which their crafting their own fruit wine for the cocktail.

It features “[the] smoked blueberry wine that we do in-house,” explains Irvine. “Fresh blueberries that have been triple smoked, pressed, then we let the sugars ferment. The smoke permeates and also brings out the tannins [in the blueberries] so you still get a tannin profile to it. Then you have whisky as the base, and figs, caramel and lemon.”

We’d definitely also recommend the Leyenda, a smoky mezcal drink with a finish that goes on and on.

“Leyenda is essentially based around all things green,” Irvine says. “We have a really green mezcal that we’re using; pistachios, the green nut; lime juice, lime sherbet, green fruit; then Green Chartreuse, and it just comes together — it’s really harmonious.”

Irvine will be basing himself at the bar at Bridge Bon-Appétit, using it as a kind of test lab for the drinks for Swillhouse’s other venues and it’s all part of an effort to explore some new avenues in their drinkmaking.

“We’re trying to move away from a menu that’s broken down into Spritz, Sour, booze-forward, summer sipper styles — just banging concepts and banging drinks,” Irvine says.

There’s also a dedicated food menu on offer with dishes like salt cod, saucisson, tartare and more.

Bridge Bon-Appétit is open each night that Restaurant Hubert is open, Monday to Saturday, from 6pm.

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