Nextdoor

An impressive bar and grill where the tone is casual but the cooking is anything but.

New chef Elliot Sawiris has breathed new life into Nextdoor, the Rockpool alum switching up the menu and streamlining things into just a few distinct sections. Snacks and Bites are the two best places to start, with glorious handheld openers like hash browns topped with whipped cod roe and smoked trout caviar (creamy, crunchy and smoky in equal measure) or a deboned chicken wing stuffed, like a dumpling, with prawn and chive mousse, fried crisp and doused in hot honey.

But there’s pleasure away from the grill, too. Think rigatoni alla vodka that’s creamy and saucy in all the right places, or tomato and watermelon salad with stracciatella and salty pops of crumbled black olive.

Then it’s a choice between Plates, or the meat section, the latter of which shows off the best of neighbouring sibling Olsen Butchers (hence the name Nextdoor), including Stone Axe Wagyu and O’Connor rib-eye cooked attentively over the fire, rested well and perhaps sauced with sharp chimichurri. But there’s pleasure away from the grill, too. Think rigatoni alla vodka that’s creamy and saucy in all the right places, or tomato and watermelon salad with stracciatella and salty pops of crumbled black olive.

Raw brick accents, polished concrete floors and low moodlighting set an intimate tone, waitstaff keep things casual, and Martinis and Negronis are built with as much care and consideration as the red-leaning wine list. The result? A local to love, even if you’re not local.