Ventuno
Ventuno stands on Hickson Road at Walsh Bay, in the historic arts precinct on Sydney Harbour, with water on one side and the city behind. Tables run out along the front for anyone who wants to eat in the open, and the room behind them is the warmer option when the wind is up. From the middle of town it is about ten minutes on foot, which makes it as easy at lunch as it is at night.
The kitchen works from a wood-fired oven and a pasta bench: pizza out of the flames, pasta shaped by hand, antipasti that change with the season. Nothing about it is fussy. Groups of 11 to 40 eat instead from a banquet sharing menu, classic or premium, which puts the same food in the middle of the table. There is takeaway too, if a pizza is going home rather than to a table.
The week runs long. Lunch and dinner are separate services on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: midday to 3pm, then 5pm or 5.30pm until 9pm. On Wednesday and Saturday there is no break, 11.30am to 9pm, or 9.30pm on the Saturday, and Sunday runs midday to 9pm. A late happy hour runs Sunday to Friday from 7.30pm until close at 9, with house wine at $12 a glass and Sydney Brewery Lager at $9.
The room
Private dining
Two rooms on Hickson Road
Book the place out and it seats 100, or holds 130 for a party on its feet. One door along, at 8/21 Hickson Road, a separate room seats 60 or takes 90 for drinks.
100 seated · 130 cocktail
Capacity is 100 at tables or 130 on foot in the restaurant, and 60 or 90 in the private room.
Ventuno
What's on here
An SRG Hospitality venue
Ventuno belongs to SRG Hospitality, the group Bill and Kathleen Drakopoulos started in 2000 and that Daniel Drakopoulos and Perry Drakopoulos run today as managing directors.