EAT > Grill Americano, Sydney (18/20)

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Sydney is not short of a serious steak. There seems to be a grill on almost every corner of the CBD, so it takes a certain confidence to bring another one up the Hume.

Grill Americano has been the Melbourne banker’s favourite since it opened on Flinders Lane in 2022, and Chris Lucas has finally brought it north, into the ground floor of the old Qantas House on Chifley Square. Lucas insists that first and foremost it is an Italian restaurant, not a steakhouse, and once you are seated on blue velvet under the halo lights with a Bellini in hand, it is hard to argue. This is Venice by way of Manhattan: white jackets, marble, beautifully cooked beef, handmade pasta and a tiramisù that comes with its own small performance. It is glamorous, expensive and enormous fun, and it was an excellent meal.

AMBIENCE >

The building is half the reason to come. Qantas House, designed by Felix Tavener of Rudder Littlemore & Rudder and opened by Robert Menzies in 1957, wraps itself around the curve of Chifley Square in a sweep of green-tinted glass and aerofoil-shaped aluminium mullions. For years its ground floor sat empty, and at one point it was a Specsavers. Lucas has restored it with real care, right down to the hand-beaten copper on the façade. The signage is discreet, so it is easy to walk straight past. Look for the curve.

Inside, Sarah Lucas and designer Samantha Eades have carried over the Grill Americano signatures: royal blue velvet banquettes, softly pleated café curtains, studded detailing and the halo pendants that float above the tables. Where Melbourne is dark and close, Sydney is lighter and breezier, with soaring ceilings and those grand windows looking out over the square. A 30-metre marble bar runs down the room, with a chilled display of oysters and crustaceans at one end, and a glowing wall of wine sits at the centre. The open kitchen is built around a wood-fired oven and the Josper grills, with sightlines through the full depth of the space.

There are around 130 seats across two dining zones, plus two private dining rooms tucked away for 16 and 18 guests. The bar is the place for a martini and a dozen oysters, or the cheeseburger, which is served from midday until late. And for those who start early, a caffè opens at 7am on weekdays for a Milanese-style breakfast: a cappuccino at the bar, Italian pastries and focaccia.

EAT >

Executive chef Vincenzo Ursini (Ristorante Reale, Le Calandre, Mugaritz) moved to Sydney for good, and so did pasta specialist Simone Giorgianni and head pastry chef Michaela Kang, which tells you how seriously the group takes this one. Lucas describes the food simply: olive oil, lemon, citrus and chilli. The menu runs from cicchetti and a raw bar, through handmade pasta, to some 15 cuts of beef from the grill.

Start small. Lobster croquettes, stuffed and fried Sicilian olives, and tuna, ‘nduja and anchovy crostini are perfect with a drink, and the prawn panzerotto crowned with Oscietra caviar is one of the dishes made just for Sydney. The raw bar offers up to a dozen oyster varieties at a time, most of them from the New South Wales coast, alongside a daily crudo. The octopus carpaccio is one of the signatures Lucas says will never leave the menu. The bufala mozzarella is flown in from Campania and served with San Daniele prosciutto, or as part of the salumi misti with warm pizza fritta.

The pasta is made in house and is where the Italian heart of the place really shows. Rigatoni with wagyu and porcini ragù is the classic. Lobster agnolotti in sauce américaine is a way to go luxe without ordering the whole lobster, and the bufala ricotta ravioli with lemon and bottarga is lighter and very pretty. For a table to share there is scampi alla Veneziana, roasted in the wood oven over saffron pilaf, or pasta all’aragosta with southern rock lobster.

Then the bistecca. The beef comes from producers such as Chauvel and Kidman, in single cuts, wagyu, and big cuts to share: a 1.2-kilogram Fiorentina on the bone, a 500-gram chateaubriand with cognac and green peppercorn, and the showpiece, a 700-gram New York-cut striploin of citrus-fed Chauvel beef, dry-aged, with grappa added late in the ageing. Tournedos Rossini, with foie gras and Madeira jus, is there for the traditionalists. Add an iceberg wedge with gorgonzola dolce and the four-cheese mac and cheese, and you are well into New York territory.

Leave room for the Tiramisù Americano. Created by Michaela Kang, it is scooped at the table from a great dish and hides a layer of tempered chocolate inside. It is the dish that made the Melbourne restaurant famous, and it deserves every word. The vanilla meringue cake and the chocolate hazelnut profiteroles are worthy alternatives, if you can resist.

Lunch on a Saturday was noticeably quieter than evening sessions with only a few tables, which allowed us (a table of six) to slowly enjoy the relaxed meal from 12 to a little after 3pm. But the evening booking on the same day was fully booked and had some tables turning over three sittings, showing that it is all about being there at the right time for the right ambience, a calm lunch of a frenetic party dinner.

DRINK >

The wine program is led by Paolo Saccone, the Milan-born sommelier who passed his Master Sommelier exam in Sydney in 2025 and was named Australia’s Best Sommelier in 2026. This October he represents Australia at the Best Sommelier of the World contest in Lisbon. The list comes in three parts: a deep cellar of Italian regions and international benchmarks, with Barolo and Burgundy at the very top end (they have DRC at $88,000 per bottle); a short list of picks starting at $70 a bottle; and around 50 wines by the glass, poured by Coravin, so you can drink something very good without committing to the bottle. Cocktails stay classic and Italian. The Bellini is an homage to Harry’s Bar, Lucas’s favourite place in Venice, the martinis arrive ice-cold, and the Marigold Sgroppino sits somewhere between a drink and dessert.

CONCLUSION >

Grill Americano Sydney is a big, confident, beautifully run restaurant in one of the city’s great modernist buildings, and it already feels as though it was always meant to be there. It is bigger, brighter and more spacious than its Melbourne sibling, and it is all the better for it. It isn’t cheap. The beef climbs steeply, the caviar more so, and the bill can mount quickly. But you don’t have to go large: a seat at the bar with oysters, a glass from the Coravin list and a bowl of pasta is one of the CBD’s great pleasures. The service is polished and white-jacketed, yet Lucas wants it to feel like a sophisticated trattoria rather than a temple, and it does. Ideal for a long business lunch, a celebration or a late supper. An excellent meal, and Sydney has gained a very good restaurant.

Chris Lucas grew up in Geelong, the only child of Greek immigrants. His father Con ran pubs and cafés, and Chris was learning to cook in the pub kitchen by the age of ten. He studied pharmacology and chemistry, then spent around a dozen years in marketing at IBM, working overseas, and he has lived in Japan. He came into restaurants almost by accident in the mid-1990s, when his partner in One Fitzroy Street in St Kilda pulled out weeks before opening and left him with a fitted-out restaurant, a chef and a manager. He made them partners. The Botanical in South Yarra followed and was named restaurant of the year. In 2011 he opened Chin Chin in a former Flinders Lane nightclub, with no bookings and queues from the first night. Kong, Hawker Hall, Baby, Kisumé, Chin Chin Sydney in the heritage Griffiths Tea Building in Surry Hills, Society and Maison Bâtard followed, many of them in old buildings he and his wife Sarah, the group’s creative director, have restored.

Grill Americano opened on Flinders Lane in 2022, inspired by Manhattan’s great Italian steakhouses and the timeless glamour of Harry’s Bar in Venice. Sydney took three years of asking and a difficult restoration. “You’ve got to be a little bit crazy to do heritage spaces,” Lucas said of the work. The building itself is a landmark. Designed by Felix Tavener of Rudder Littlemore & Rudder, it was the first planned world headquarters of Qantas Empire Airways and was opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies on 28 October 1957. It won the RIBA Bronze Medal in 1959, and its curved façade followed the planned extension of Elizabeth Street, giving Chifley Square its shape. It was added to the State Heritage Register in 2001. Grill Americano Sydney opened on 19 November 2025 with more than 4,000 bookings already in hand, the first opening under the group’s new name, Lucas Collective.

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