Left to right: Morgan McGlone, Nathan Sasi, Sali Sasi. Photo: Yusuke Oba
Words by Sali Sasi, Nathan Sasi And Morgan McGlone · Published on 20 Aug 2025
The magic of Bar Vincent was Andy [Logue] and Sarah [Simm], what they did. It feels so old-school hospo, right? You just really felt like you were part of the fabric of that place – whether you were a guest or a team member, it didn’t matter.
It was cool, older, strong staff, who usually worked at Sean’s too. You could BYO, it was dark and intimate. It felt like an extension of your living room, really nostalgic and homey. You would go with your own group, but you would always run into other industry people. It just had this level of warmth and love in the building. It was quite different to anything else.
The style of food was very approachable, super seasonal, handmade pastas – comfort food for chefs and hospitality people. It felt really mature as well. It definitely reminded us of a restaurant era that doesn’t really exist anymore.
Like, right now, when you go into any restaurant, you barely see the chef. Whereas Andy was always moving from the kitchen to the floor. He’d bring people into the experience by standing at your table with a live lobster in his hand. Even if he wasn’t at your table, you’d be staring at that from across the room, like at a mum-and-dad restaurant. That’s the way it always felt.
We had loads of birthdays there. It was so central for everyone to meet. And you didn’t even know what you were getting half the time! You’d order a fish and a steak, and they’d split the pastas up. It was a really nice place to go for a long lunch. But it was quite loose. There were no socials. The website is old school. They fucking closed for six weeks at Christmas. How do you just close for six weeks?
We’d known Sarah and Andy for ages. It was late last year, we weren’t doing anything else, because we were still working on Bessie’s. Sarah said to us, “Look, I think we want to sell. So, if you know anyone who’s interested…”
Andy was like, “The lease is up at the start of 2026, if we can’t find someone that we feel will do this place justice, we’re just going to close it.”
It’s a cool place, it’s for the industry, it’s iconic – we’d have hated for that little part of Sydney to just fade away into the background. We held onto so many incredible memories in that building that we said, “We don’t want to let that go. We’ve got to make this happen.”
We took possession on April 1. After a week, we knew we’d have to change the place.
The building is from 1907. And, we think, from the first time it became a restaurant in the late ’70s until now, not much has really happened to it. Andy said, “Look, when you come here, there’s character”. It was funny, the equipment was seemingly timed to malfunction one after the other after the other. There was water running from the floors through to the cellar when we mopped.
We retiled, fixed the water issue. And we could have left it at that. But we needed more bums on seats. It was big space, without a lot of seats. We always want to make sure, at all of our venues, that there’s longevity and security – that they’re not just a flash in the pan. They need to reputable, but also profitable. That can’t be done if you’re not looking at the numbers.
The new configuration has 18 more seats but hasn’t changed anything structurally. We’ve repainted, got a full new colour palette, soundproofing material on the ceiling. It definitely looks very different, but it’s still as moody as it was before. And we’ve got outdoor seats as well, a very similar vibe to Bar Copains. We’ve had a few residents come in here who have seen the bollards go up, and they’re like, “Oh my god, I can’t wait till summer comes and I’m sitting out the front”.
With the new iteration, we chose the name Vin-Cenzo because it’s obviously Vincent in Italian. It’s funny when you look at how someone perceives what the DNA is of a restaurant. At Bar Vincent, the menu was changing every single day. There are specials, produce-driven. When we came in, we took those elements. We did a lemon pasta, a classic pasta you’d have in the Amalfi – lemons, olive oil, a little bit of butter and some basil. Beautiful things. And people’d be like, “Andy would never do that”.
Maybe he never did that dish, but the DNA is exactly what this place is.
People are devastated that you can’t call up and book anymore – that we don’t answer the phone during service. It would just be ringing, ringing, ringing. The reality is, we live in a modern era now. Everything’s online. We’ve done justice to everything that happened before, respected the style of cuisine, respected their philosophy – but we’re going to make it true to us and true to 2025. People reject change a lot, but things need to change and evolve. We loved buying the place, but we’re not Andy and Sarah. They wanted to sell, and they came to us.
Another thing regulars might find challenging is, we’re moving away from split pastas – there’s going to be uproar. To soften the blow, there will be an agnolotti en brodo we’ll split. But if you’ve ever gone to Bar Copains or Bessie’s, one thing we do really well is dining spaces that bring people together, and that’s about having food to share. All of our venues have this buzz, because we’ve got people laughing and sharing and talking about what they’re eating.
We can put our spin on it and still respect everything that came before, even prior to Bar Vincent. There’s so much hospitality history in the actual space. We read a 1989 review by Leo Schofield of Tre Scalini, of the restaurant that was here then. It was super iconic, similar to how Beppi’s was in that era – like ’80s, ’90s. It was actually a gangsters’ hang out. It makes you wonder what happened in this space.
The main reason we bought it is because we loved it. Even if what it is changes slightly, the bones are still the same. The heart is still the same. All we’re trying to do is create a beautiful space and serve you delicious food and wine. We look at this as a great challenge. If you’re apprehensive to come back: let us show you what we do. Let us give you a great time, let us try and show you the evolution of the space.
As told to Grace MacKenzie.
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The magic of Bar Vincent was Andy [Logue] and Sarah [Simm], what they did. It feels so old-school hospo, right? You just really felt like you were part of the fabric of that place – whether you were a guest or a team member, it didn’t matter.
It was cool, older, strong staff, who usually worked at Sean’s too. You could BYO, it was dark and intimate. It felt like an extension of your living room, really nostalgic and homey. You would go with your own group, but you would always run into other industry people. It just had this level of warmth and love in the building. It was quite different to anything else.
The style of food was very approachable, super seasonal, handmade pastas – comfort food for chefs and hospitality people. It felt really mature as well. It definitely reminded us of a restaurant era that doesn’t really exist anymore.
Like, right now, when you go into any restaurant, you barely see the chef. Whereas Andy was always moving from the kitchen to the floor. He’d bring people into the experience by standing at your table with a live lobster in his hand. Even if he wasn’t at your table, you’d be staring at that from across the room, like at a mum-and-dad restaurant. That’s the way it always felt.
We had loads of birthdays there. It was so central for everyone to meet. And you didn’t even know what you were getting half the time! You’d order a fish and a steak, and they’d split the pastas up. It was a really nice place to go for a long lunch. But it was quite loose. There were no socials. The website is old school. They fucking closed for six weeks at Christmas. How do you just close for six weeks?
We’d known Sarah and Andy for ages. It was late last year, we weren’t doing anything else, because we were still working on Bessie’s. Sarah said to us, “Look, I think we want to sell. So, if you know anyone who’s interested…”
Andy was like, “The lease is up at the start of 2026, if we can’t find someone that we feel will do this place justice, we’re just going to close it.”
It’s a cool place, it’s for the industry, it’s iconic – we’d have hated for that little part of Sydney to just fade away into the background. We held onto so many incredible memories in that building that we said, “We don’t want to let that go. We’ve got to make this happen.”
We took possession on April 1. After a week, we knew we’d have to change the place.
The building is from 1907. And, we think, from the first time it became a restaurant in the late ’70s until now, not much has really happened to it. Andy said, “Look, when you come here, there’s character”. It was funny, the equipment was seemingly timed to malfunction one after the other after the other. There was water running from the floors through to the cellar when we mopped.
We retiled, fixed the water issue. And we could have left it at that. But we needed more bums on seats. It was big space, without a lot of seats. We always want to make sure, at all of our venues, that there’s longevity and security – that they’re not just a flash in the pan. They need to reputable, but also profitable. That can’t be done if you’re not looking at the numbers.
The new configuration has 18 more seats but hasn’t changed anything structurally. We’ve repainted, got a full new colour palette, soundproofing material on the ceiling. It definitely looks very different, but it’s still as moody as it was before. And we’ve got outdoor seats as well, a very similar vibe to Bar Copains. We’ve had a few residents come in here who have seen the bollards go up, and they’re like, “Oh my god, I can’t wait till summer comes and I’m sitting out the front”.
With the new iteration, we chose the name Vin-Cenzo because it’s obviously Vincent in Italian. It’s funny when you look at how someone perceives what the DNA is of a restaurant. At Bar Vincent, the menu was changing every single day. There are specials, produce-driven. When we came in, we took those elements. We did a lemon pasta, a classic pasta you’d have in the Amalfi – lemons, olive oil, a little bit of butter and some basil. Beautiful things. And people’d be like, “Andy would never do that”.
Maybe he never did that dish, but the DNA is exactly what this place is.
People are devastated that you can’t call up and book anymore – that we don’t answer the phone during service. It would just be ringing, ringing, ringing. The reality is, we live in a modern era now. Everything’s online. We’ve done justice to everything that happened before, respected the style of cuisine, respected their philosophy – but we’re going to make it true to us and true to 2025. People reject change a lot, but things need to change and evolve. We loved buying the place, but we’re not Andy and Sarah. They wanted to sell, and they came to us.
Another thing regulars might find challenging is, we’re moving away from split pastas – there’s going to be uproar. To soften the blow, there will be an agnolotti en brodo we’ll split. But if you’ve ever gone to Bar Copains or Bessie’s, one thing we do really well is dining spaces that bring people together, and that’s about having food to share. All of our venues have this buzz, because we’ve got people laughing and sharing and talking about what they’re eating.
We can put our spin on it and still respect everything that came before, even prior to Bar Vincent. There’s so much hospitality history in the actual space. We read a 1989 review by Leo Schofield of Tre Scalini, of the restaurant that was here then. It was super iconic, similar to how Beppi’s was in that era – like ’80s, ’90s. It was actually a gangsters’ hang out. It makes you wonder what happened in this space.
The main reason we bought it is because we loved it. Even if what it is changes slightly, the bones are still the same. The heart is still the same. All we’re trying to do is create a beautiful space and serve you delicious food and wine. We look at this as a great challenge. If you’re apprehensive to come back: let us show you what we do. Let us give you a great time, let us try and show you the evolution of the space.
As told to Grace MacKenzie.
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