Tucano’s will be a modern tropical bar on Goulburn Street,Surry Hills.Jessica BianconIn the kitchen,Naomi Lowry,the former head chef at the hatted-but-now-shuttered Biota Dining,will spin ingredients in different ways across the menu.
“There’ll be a pork cutlet with pineapple and capsicum – it’s my play on sweet-and-sour pork – and a pineapple lamington Arctic roll,” Lowry says.
Tucano’s is the latest bar to super-charge its food menu,with everyone from Luke Mangan’s upcomingLuc-San to Joel Best’sBar Besuto upping the food game after the early years of Sydney’s bar scene regularly offered little of interest to eat.
Tucano’s will open in August. Jessica BianconRoman street food favourite trapizzino,a pizza pocket,will star on the opening menu and Lowry is also fine-tuning a kingfish bruschetta and Mai Tai rum baba.
Lowry has worked with local chef Danny Russo,who recentlyopened Italian seafood restaurant Sala in Pyrmont with Flying Fish owner Con Dedes,and had stints working with the late French chef Michel Roux Snr and Irish restaurateur Oliver Peyton,too.
At Tucano’s,she joins an experienced crew. Davis,the former general manager at Opera Bar,co-owns the start-up with a gaggle of seasoned hospitality types,including Ben Hickey and Naomi Palmer,who own and operate The Roosevelt in Potts Point.
Head chef Naomi Lowry (left) with sous chef Malachi Ottawa.Jessica BianconAfter successfully navigating the About Time pop-up – which served Pavlova Milk Punch – the team went in search of a permanent site,landing on the Surry Hills site that housed Cafe Lounge for two decades before closing during the pandemic.
“I know it well,” Davis says. “I had a couple of birthdays here.”
Tucano’s will open at the beginning of August.
277 Goulburn Street,Surry Hills,tucanos.com.au