Bar H owners, Hamish Ingham and Rebecca Lines, will open a 200-seater bistro at Barangaroo later this year.
Banksii, named after Sir Joseph Banks, will have a botanical theme and a focus on vermouth, including a locally distilled craft selection.
“We’ll have vermouth on tap – it’s something we’ve been looking at for a while. It’s quite big in Europe, but it’s not really big here yet. So we want to bring it into the light,” Ingham told Hospitality.
“For me botanicals mean, light, fresh food and that’s what I like cooking. I can play with the vermouth, try things like vermouth and mussels. Chefs cook with it a lot.”
Banksii will be open from September, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week.
Breakfast dishes will include: rosemary sheep’s milk yoghurt with fresh honeycomb and brioche; and grilled Cumberland sausage, fried egg, organic chickpeas and tomatoes cooked in vermouth. Lunch and dinner will have a light, fresh approach including; vegetable crudit with sesame yoghurt and mountain leaf oil; and roast spatchcock, botanicals, fried bread and agro dolce. A banksia flower trifle with banksia syrup, sweet vermouth, rosella jelly and burnt vanilla custard will round-out the menu.
The duo opened The Woods at Four Seasons in 2012, and split their time between the restaurant and Bar H Dining. On leaving The Woods at the end of 2013 , Ingham said “It’s been the most fantastic experience in terms of setting up a 180 seat restaurant.”
The couple will again split their time between Bar H and their new venture. “We have the experience of setting up Four Seasons behind us, so it’s scary but not too scary,” said Ingham.