In the West End of the 1960s, Café Giaconda was a legendary muso hang-out, and Denmark Street was where it was at. Bob Marley came here to buy his first guitar, the Stones recorded their first album at number four, Elton John was an office boy at number 20, and Bowie lived in a camper van parked opposite the café.
Chef Paul Merrony left Sydney as a young gun to work with the Roux brothers in Britain and La Tour d’Argent in Paris in the 1980s, before becoming one of the big names of the burgeoning Sydney dining scene well into the 1990s. He’s now back “for a bit of a change”, having done a budget makeover of the 35-seat site.
As for food, Merrony isn’t reinventing anything, but his particular take on urban peasant food makes him very much a chef for our times. He knows how to do things well, fast and cheap.