The January Hit List: Londres 126, Loulou, Ante, My Zakaya, and More

Hyper-regional Mexican eateries are Milpa Collective’s specialty and Londres 126 is its newest venue. It follows on from the restaurant group opening Yucatán-influenced Casa Merida in Potts Point and the Oaxacan-focused Santa Catarina launching in the CBD. Londres 126 may be named after the Mexico City home of international art star Frida Kahlo, but it has a deeply personal angle, too. This cantina is inspired co-owner and chef Pablo Galindo Vargas’s home town. It’s where his love of food developed and Londres 126 riffs on dishes you might find there, such as chochoyotes (Mexican ‘gnocchi’ with wild mushrooms and ajillo cultured butter) and brûlée made from rompope (Mexican egg nogg).

As co-founder of Black Market Sake, Matt Young has been searching out interesting artisan brews from Japan for over a decade. Now he has a bar to showcase them: Ante. There’s the naturally fizzy Daigo no Shizuku, made with a brewing method pioneered 600 years ago by Nara’s Shōryaku-ji temple, and a sake by Osaka’s Akishika Shuzo, produced from a single organic rice patty in 2005. There’s pineapple shu, too, which has been aged in-house. Chef Jemma Whiteman offers a just-as-striking menu to match the drinks list: from fermented shiitake tagliatelle to a surprisingly light chocolate dessert produced with red rice kasu (a sake by-product).

Locals have been taking note of Matt Whiley’s Re bar and its creative reuse of landfilled-destined ingredients since its April opening, when rum-rested banana skins were transformed into Old Fashioned remixes and unsold fruit ended up in melon margaritas. Its recent Never Wasted program has given a second life to the excess sourdough of Sydney bakeries, the spent beer grains of Yulli’s brewery and the fruit pulp of Gelato Messina – turning these unwanted ingredients into high-demand cocktails. And now Re is in the international spotlight: it was recently added to The World’s 50 Best Bars list and scored its Sustainable Bar award.

You may already be fans of Elvan Fan and Carol Xu’s Moon & Back cafe in Rosebery, which showcases Japanese sweets and designs. Xu, its pastry chef, has spent years perfecting a milk mochi dessert, but for some reason, it didn’t feel quite right for that cafe’s menu. Now she has a home for it: Wan, the duo’s new eatery. It’s inspired by kissaten (coffee shops from Japan’s Showa era, circa 1926–1989) as well as Taiwan, where Fan is from. Here, the silken mochi dessert is served with black sugar syrup and a dusting of kinako powder. They enlisted Kei Tokiwa (Chaco Bar and Sekka Dining) for their flavour-loaded menu, which includes a somen remix of traditional Taiwanese beef noodle soup, riffs on kissaten faves (coffee jelly, melon soda) as well as today’s Tiktok trends (like corn ribs – Wan presents them with a welcome dusting of ‘nacho’ powder).

Lima-born José Alkon showcases the best of his homeland at Pepito’s. His bar is modelled on a buzzy institution (Juanito) that’s been loudly entertaining the city’s Barranco area since the 1930s – one corner’s even decorated to match his favourite part of Juanito. Alkon’s playlist is Peruvian, the walls are plastered with the country’s stars and there’s plenty of pisco to savour here. The menu has always acknowledged the country’s migration history (from ox-heart skewers that originated with Peru’s enslaved population to stir-fried lomo saltado via the Chinese indentured servants who replaced them). Pepito’s is upfront about all aspects of Peruvian culture, and its successful execution of this has landed it Time Out’s Favourite New Opening award. Don’t miss the huancaina, a spicy cheese sauce that transforms the carbs-of-the-day they’re served with.

Loulou opened just before Christmas with its triple-threat concept: a bistro, boulangerie and traiteur within footsteps of each other. So you can order Toulouse sausage, chicken liver parfait and country terrine by the slice in the deli area, or pick truly fresh bread from the bakery – like old-school French boulangeries, loaves come out of the ovens several times a day, with baking continuing until 5pm at night. The bistro takes you through French territory, from eggplant à la Provençale to moules-frites (mussels and fries) that might evoke the port city of Marseille.

O Tama Carey’s much-awaited Lanka Food cookbook is out in March, but the best preview of it is via her award-winning Lankan Filling Station restaurant. Dine at her inviting eatery and try her hot butter cuttlefish, string hoppers, green vegetable mallung or bitter gourd sambol before their recipes appear in her book’s pages. And cross your fingers that she’ll bring back her beloved brunch menu, with its peni pol pancakes flavoured with cardamom, toasted coconut and jaggery or her turmeric-golden thosai (and if she doesn’t, don’t worry, you’ll find them in Lanka Food, too).

Lifelong friends Chris and Dylan Duong bring you doughnuts and ice-cream inspired by Asian flavours their team are deeply familiar with at Duo Duo. Their pandan doughnut is jammed with a rich kaya filling, which you can credit to the Indonesian background of pastry chef Veronica Indrawan. Duo Duo’s ice-cream tastes like freshly brewed Thai milk tea, Vietnamese coffee or matcha, or classic Asian desserts (such as mango sticky rice). Hot tip: the deep-fried ice-cream is available if you turn up to the storefront after 5pm and don’t forget to meet Eve, Duo Duo’s new ice-cream cake, which is layered with mango puree jelly, pandan mousse, coconut dacquoise, mango gel and young coconut sorbet.

If you know chef Nobu Maruyama from his days at Bar H or Kuro Dining, you might want to drop by his first solo venture: My Zakaya. Billed as a “cosy izakaya”, it offers his take on Japanese staples – like a dengaku eggplant flavoured with red wine tomato miso (instead of the typical sweet miso glaze) that he’s hyping as worth the 25-minute wait. There’s koji chicken salad alongside your more familiar green tea noodle and seaweed salads. You’ll also see sashimi, tempura, gyoza and sushi rolls on the menu, plus intriguing snacks such as salmon roe with yuzu sour cream on dumpling crisps.

The team behind Percy Plunkett launched this Italian venture at Nepean Village last year. GellaFrenda is informally known as Percy’s “girlfriend”, and this spin-off venue offers everything from deli cuts (fennel salami) and pizza (prawn and zucchini with confit garlic) to pasta (casarecce with wagyu Bolognese). There’s bistecca mustard herb better, roast snappet fillet with zucchini flowers and acqua pazza, as well as spaghetti carbonara in both pasta and pizza form. If you’ve got a craving for gelato, good news. The scoops here are courtesy of Ciccone & Sons.