First Look: Lo Presti’s in Redfern Was 10 Years in the Making
Words by Dan Cunningham · Updated on 23 Jul 2026 · Published on 23 Jul 2026
For Michael Lo Presti and Rachel Trewin, opening a 50-seat restaurant together was more about knowing what they didn’t want to do.
“The main thing was, we don’t want it to feel intimidating or have any ego behind it,” Trewin says. “We don’t want to be the hottest new thing in Redfern,” Lo Presti adds. “We just want to become part of the suburb.”
Lo Presti and Trewin have been kicking around the industry long enough to know. Their new place, in the legendary former Moon Park site on the corner of Redfern and Elizabeth streets, opens this Friday after they spent a decade working in some of Sydney’s most influential restaurants – Automata, Momofuku Seiobo, Sixpenny among them.
But it was Lo Presti and Trewin’s respective stints as head chef and manager at Baba’s Place (and living for a time in a sharehouse together) that may have the biggest influence on the vibe and menu at Lo Presti’s.
“When Michael and I used to live together, we’d plan a menu on a Monday night and have 20 to 30 friends come over and cook for them,” says Trewin. “We wanted this place to feel like we’re having a dinner party at our house.”
To that end, expect a convivial menu that’s “greater than the sum of its parts” with a broad Mediterranean remit. One dish that captures the former is the bluefin tuna toast with marinated cime di rapa and preserved lemon on focaccia. “It’s a bit Italian, a bit Moroccan” says Lo Presti. “A really delicious amalgamation of different cultures.”
Another, a riff on Portugal’s porco à alentejana, comes in the form of a grilled pork chop in a white wine and coriander sauce with local pippies.
But vegetables and olive oil dominate the menu, with dishes such as steamed zucchini and braised leeks with goat’s curd, and charred eggplant, jalapeno and coriander designed to fit into the dining style. Order a selection as meze to start, or deploy them as sides for main dishes such as the aforementioned chop or braised kangaroo tail with green salsa.
The team has enlisted front-of-house wizard Paul Guiney of South End to spearhead the wine list. The very short list of four house cocktails, meanwhile, was designed by Trewin’s partner Olly Churcher and Claudia “Beryl” Morgan of Enmore’s Bar Demo. The restaurant’s Grecian streak shines in a sour inspired by avgolemono soup, featuring gin, nigori sake, salted lemon, dill and olive oil.
Why only four cocktails, though? Trewin calls it one more item on the pair’s list of what-not-to-dos. “We’re not doing anything half-arsed.”
Lo Presti’s opens on Friday July 24.
Lo Presti’s
Hours:
Thu & Fri 5.30pm–11.30pm
Sat midday–11.30pm
Sun midday–4pm
About the author
Dan Cunningham is Broadsheet’s features editor (food & drink).
