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With many of our reviews in December and January focused on Japan, February returns us to Australia. ALMANAK remains a guide: a way to make sense of seasons, places and the choices that fill your calendar. February bends that lens back towards Sydney, taking one wharf, a few streets of Paddington and a clutch of laneways and asking what it looks like when a city’s everyday haunts start to feel like destinations again.
Down on Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharf, the story runs as a three‑act piece of harbour theatre. Ovolo Sydney, Woolloomooloo is cast as the all‑in, neon‑lit clubhouse: a heritage wharf shell turned into a playful hotel where loft‑style rooms, indoor pool and free‑flow perks make it feel more like borrowing a friend’s harbour hideout than checking into a conventional five‑star. A few doors along, OTTO Ristorante holds the line as the original la dolce vita dining room, all sun‑struck linen, pasta, seafood and long‑lunch storytelling, a place that has seen everyone from long‑term wharf residents to visiting entertainers treat its terrace as an extension of their living room. Step back from the marina and The Tilbury picks up the narrative, the sort of pub‑restaurant that can handle a martini at the bar, a Sunday roast or a dressed‑up dinner without ever losing its slightly hidden‑in‑plain‑sight calm.
A little further east, Paddington’s Italian daydream takes shape at Barbetta, where the brief runs from early‑morning espresso to late‑afternoon spritz without ever losing the sense that you could be on a back street in Rome rather than just off Oxford Street. Terrazzo, banquettes and shelves of pantry staples frame a café that is as serious about lasagne and coffee as it is relaxed about tempo, the kind of room where locals linger, newcomers wait happily for a table and more than a few guests leave with something for their pantry as well as their diary. Barbetta is only a block away from the outstanding Saint Peter which after another recent visit confirms (alongside the outstanding Harriot in Melbourne) that this really is one of the very best restaurants in Australia right now. Barbetta is a venue that sits neatly alongside other smart dining venues in Sydney and Melbourne guides, tightening ALMANAK’s focus on places that thread together design, food and neighbourhood energy rather than chasing novelty for its own sake.
Japan, meanwhile, continues to shape the season’s wider arc. January’s editorial mapped a run of Tokyo hotels and sushi counters, Niigata and Tohoku ski hills, and a Sendai‑valley brewpub, treating snow country as one long itinerary rather than a collection of isolated resorts. That same approach underpins this month’s Sydney pieces: Ovolo, OTTO, The Tilbury and Barbetta are less a checklist than a compact city guide, a way to understand Woolloomooloo and Paddington not as single stops but as overlapping neighbourhoods of harbour walks, counter seats and long lunches. Together with the ongoing SKI coverage from Ishiuchi to Maiko, Gala, Yuzawa Kogen and Naeba, they sketch a year that treats atmosphere, ritual and a strong sense of place as non‑negotiables, whether you are stepping off a shinkansen or onto a wharf.
Wherever you are reading this from – harbour, hillside, laneway or lift line – I hope this edition of THE ALMANAK nudges you towards one new address that feels instantly like part of your own map.
Cheers
Crispin
