“The way we see things is Love, Tilly Devine is our Australian natural wine bar, Dear Sainte Eloise is our French wine bar and Ragazzi Wine and Pasta is our Italian-wine-based venue,” Matt Swieboda, who co-owns the three aforementioned venues and the CBD’s Fabbrica with business partner Nate Hatwell, tells Broadsheet. “Spain was the obvious next move.”

Say “hola” to La Salut, a collaboration between the Love Tilly Group and The People – a new hospitality group that’s rejuvenating pubs and adding hotel rooms to them. It’s recently revamped boozers including the Strand in Darlinghurst and the 100-year-old Norfolk in Redfern. The 40-seat wine bar will open in the Norfolk’s former sports bar this spring.

La Salut is inspired by the wine bars of the Barcelona suburb of the same name – an area executive chef and co-owner Scott McComas-Williams (also Ragazzi and Fabbrica) became well acquainted with when he worked in the Catalan city. Chefs will plate up snacks elbow-to-elbow with bartenders pouring vermouth and natural wine from behind a central bar.

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The star snack? Lightly pickled mussels, briny olives, guindilla (green chilli), salty crisps and house-made hot sauce. It’s a tribute to a dish McComas-Williams fell in love with at Morro Fi – a no-frills vermouth and tapas bar in Barcelona.

“This is a tip of the hat to one of those hospitality life-changing moments for me,” McComas-Williams tells Broadsheet. “I’ll never forget the moment I walked into vermouth bar Morro Fi for the first time. Punters spilling out onto the street, sipping vermouth with olives and a dash of soda or necking cañas of beer – or both at the same time – all while eating some of the tastiest bar snacks around, made by the bartender pouring your drink. This is an ode to the fact that a dish can be greater than the sum of its parts.”

Other dishes are what McComas Williams describes as “simple Catalan food on a plate without any fuss” – food that doesn’t rely on “superfluous garnishes” or fancy plating. Expect sea urchin with ajo blanco (a white soup of bread, almonds and garlic served cold), drizzled with a clarified gazpacho; the Catalan sausage butifarra, made in-house and garnished with clams and beans; and jamon iberico, which makes a great drinking buddy.

As you’d expect from the team behind Love, Tilly Devine, which helped foster Sydney’s love of natural wine, the wine list is a huge focus. Swieboda will promote Spanish natural wines, including a pét-nat from cult winemaker Nuria Renom; drops aged in underground amphorae; and bottles from the Canary Islands, whose soils have a similarly volcanic quality to Sicily’s Mount Etna region.

“We feel [Spain’s] natural-wine movement is still massively underrated, especially in this town,” says Swieboda. “As a kitchen concept, this is closest to Tilly in a way. All the food is done in front of the customers; there’s no kitchen per se. But what Scott has managed from the space is simply incredible. People will be able to come in for snacks, but we expect that most will want to stick around for the whole experience. It’s seriously impressive.”

“Andrew and I have been intrigued by Matt and Nathanial and the brands they have built for a long time,” Paul Schulte, co-founder of The People, tells Broadsheet. “The opening of Fabricca, and seeing how that brand operated in a small space, was really the catalyst for the beginnings of this partnership. There’ll also be a lot of crossover between the venues, so customers of the Norfolk and La Salut can access the best of both.”

The group will also run a small bottle shop in the Norfolk called Bottles. Punters can buy bottles of Australian or international wine to take away or drink in the pub. And when six guest rooms open above the Norfolk down the track, the La Salut team will offer in-room dining.

La Salut is set to open in spring.

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