2 weeks Ago By Lenny Ann Low
Cafe $ $$$ Upon entering Sol Bread and Wine – a cafe, bistro and wine bar in the hilly residential streets beside North Sydney’s CBD – an urge to stroke its every corner is overwhelming. Maybe caress its curved, port-holed, dark honey chairs with their cushioned seats and fat round legs. Or trace the marble floor, zigzagged with black diagonal patterns resembling geometric lightning bolts.
Or touch the swooping, gleaming burgundy staircase curling up beside tall windows into the floor above. Everything is beautiful. The long marble front counter, edged by peppermint stools, brass lighting, flowers and stacks of chubby, dark cream plates.
Shelves of wine bottles brushing the ceiling, bread loaves lying in wooden cubicles, and more wood panelling indented with shapes as round as the sun. Sol Bread and Wine, which opened in June, operates across breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a bar open into the evening. Part of a four-venue precinct in Walker Street, it is overseen by Etymon Projects, already known for Loulou Bistro, Boulangerie and Traiteur in Milsons Point, Poetica Bar and Grill in North Sydney, and, in the Sydney CBD and the Charles Grand Brasserie and Bar .
The swooping staircase leads to Sol’s sister venues – artisanal grocer Una Providore, Japanese restaurant Genzo and 200-seat restaurant Soluna. Visit their beauty – sage green couches, cane-backed chairs, serene LA times in Soluna, highly covetable Japanese salt, Spanish chorizo and Italian sardines at Una. But come back to Sol Bread and Wine and gaze at the cakes.
Here in a glass cabinet is the Louise cake. An almond and lime sponge lined with berry jam and topped with swirling ribbons of piped pastel-pink icing. It looks like hand-carved alabaster but is soft and buttery.
Its neighbour, a deliciously light semolina, olive oil and basil cake is wigged with soft pale green swirls of icing beside an excellently dense peanut butter and jelly cake latticed with hillocks of butter-yellow icing. An apple and pecan viennoiserie resembles a delicate shell until you crush its delicate flakiness into your mouth. The non-cake menu is perfectly tailored.
Highlights include soft-boiled eggs with fried polenta soldiers and smoked salmon for breakfast, a luscious toasted cheese, ham and pickle sandwich for lunch, and lamb braised in coffee, with turnip and peas, for afternoon or evening. There’s beer and cocktails, including non-alcoholic versions, and an extensive list of spirits and Australian, US, New Zealand and European wines by the glass, carafe and bottle. Rhys Connell, executive chef of Sol Bread and Wine, Soluna, Genzo and Una, says Sol is intended to be a comfortable, relaxing neighbourhood spot where diners curate meals from small plates, bigger dishes and sides to suit the time of day.
“The majority of the menu is smaller items because they’re designed to be eaten with a glass of wine,” he says. “You get lots of different flavours, everything is seasonal and there are lots of choices and variation. “It also means, if you’re switching from a glass of white that’s bright and acidic to a big, bold red, you can easily switch up what you’re eating to suit.
” Excellent examples of different smaller dishes include citrusy and crunchy asparagus segments with apple and lemon; rich and fragrant eggplant pieces laden with labneh, freshly crushed tomato and ras el hanout, a Moroccan spice blend. Today’s winner is a masterfully creamy mini-stew of mussels and artichoke served with thick sourdough for soaking fishy juices. Sol Bread and Wine houses its own bakery, supplying bread for the restaurants and locals buying khorasan, spelt, pumpkin and rustic loaves, along with focaccia and country rolls.
The morning clientele, supping on porridge, banana bread and marmalade butter and herb-buttered mushrooms with poached eggs and rice hash browns, inhabit a venue that feels entirely different to the low-lit bar it becomes at twilight. “Because we’re on the top of the hill you’ve got the sun beaming in your face from morning into lunchtime,” Connell says. “Sol is Spanish for sun and this is a really light, bright place to be, which, in the North Sydney CBD area, is rare.
“Literally every demographic is represented in this suburb so we made Sol a space to suit everyone, whether they’re coming for breakfast or lunch or rolling in for dinner and some wine. “It’s a good place to spend your time.” The low-down Vibe: Handsome cafe, bistro and wine bar offering curated breakfast, lunch and dinner menus with an extensive wine and cocktail list Cost: $80, plus drinks (for two) The new metro will take you to North Sydney in a flash.
First stop, this fancy 260-seat diner.
