Australia Street Suites: Sydney restaurant legends launch luxury Newtown stays

On opening nearly two decades ago, Bodega and Porteno didn’t so much enter the Sydney restaurant conversation as commandeer it.

Anthony Bourdain rapped the inventive shared plates. The killer rock’n’roll playlist was ahead of its time. The design prompted talkability (before talkability was a word).

Now, part of that same culinary team is elevating Sydney’s ascendant boutique hotel experience.

Elvis Abrahanowicz and wife Sarah Doyle, alongside Joe Valore and wife Ana (who is Abrahanowicz’s sister) have taken on the newly added role of hoteliers in Sydney’s inner-west hub of Newtown.

Under the collective moniker Paisano and Daughters (between them, the couples have seven girls), what began in 2015 on Australia Street as Continental Deli — a bistro of European-inspired eats and canned cocktails that enabled many a Sydneysider to glide through lockdown — has expanded to a string of three more restaurants including classic Italian at Osteria Mucca, seafood bar Mister Grotto, and produce-driven Flora.

Read the first edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

Not done, their vision has shifted upwards with the recent opening of three light-filled, two-bedroom luxury apartments set above the culinary destinations — the Australia Street Suites.

“I wanted to use as much Australian design as I could,” Doyle tells Roam on a recent walkthrough of the immaculately appointed and homely apartments. “Well, it is Australia Street.”

It means furniture by Jardan, Armadillo rugs, Sheridan linen and towels, Leif amenities and A.H. Beard mattresses, the country’s oldest bedding brand.

Doyle unconsciously displays her exactitude (without being fussy) by smoothing the bedding.

“I make all the beds myself,” she says. “I do hospital corners, then I pleat it in, instead of shoving it all the way under, so it falls nicely.”

It’s a personal touch that further elevates things — Doyle also the one to fill fruit bowls and deliver fresh bread from the collective’s standout Surry Hills bakery, Humble. So too, handwritten notes penned to all guests.

Pointing to the gallery-worthy mix of Australian art adorning the walls — works by Toni Clarke and Kyle Murrell — Doyle claims the business quartet held one rule in regards to the interiors.

“We all had to agree on every piece — stuff we think we would have in our own home,” she says.

The morning sun casts a warming glow across the impressive timber finishes and suites further enhanced by genuine space, fridges, full kitchen facilities and lush indoor plants.

Once a line of terraces dating to 1911 which previously led lives as doctors’ surgeries, beauty salons, private homes and a butcher, the suites were five years in the making.

“We wanted to keep as much of the integrity of the original building and they all needed complete redoing from scratch,” states Doyle.

Naturally, guests are well catered for — pantries stocked with products from Continental Deli while, if not in the mood to mosey downstairs for what is some of Newton’s finest food, guests can pre-order to the suites.

“A group that just stayed ordered cheese and charcuterie from Continental and oysters from Mister Grotto,” Doyle says, noting the latter restaurant’s chef is Saint Peter alum Måns Engberg.

“Mister Grotto gets the best seafood in Australia . . . I’m not joking!”

The location is peerless. Just 5km from the Sydney CBD and towards the edge of the expansive Sydney Park, Australia Street has also retained the patina of classic Newtown with its fire station, cop shop, and, adjacent to the Australia Street Suites the Courthouse Hotel — its public bar a scene as lifted from a Rennie Ellis photograph.

Doyle looks out the window to the beer garden of the “Courty”.

“We’re sound proofed, though on a Friday or Saturday night you can feel a very slight hum — you get the feeling of knowing you’re in the middle of something,” she muses.

This level of luxury accommodation is a first for this area, surprising really, given Newtown holds some of Sydney’s best restaurants, bars and boutique shopping. World famous musicians and comedians perform nightly at the nearby Enmore Theatre while Newtown station is a short walk from the suites, the airport an 18-minute train ride.

“If you’ve only got a week or a weekend in Sydney, I think that the inner-west shows what Sydney is about,” says Doyle, who has lived locally for 25 years. “It’s a true cultural representation — not all white, not all rich, a mix of everyone.

“The other day there was a guy coming down Australia Street at 10am on a skateboard, playing the guitar with no shirt on — that’s Newtown.”

In the kitchen at Flora Abrahanowicz is busily prepping for the day’s service.

Like Doyle, he’s passionate about their new venture and swerve into designer accommodation.

“I think it’s nice to have local places to stay,” he says. “And I really like the connection between the restaurants and the accommodation.”

australiastreetsuites.com