Coming Soon: Neil Perry Is Converting His Double Bay Bar Into a Pizzeria

It’s been a season of change for the Perrys. Last August, the celebrated Aussie chef and his wife and business partner Sam made a quick pivot when they opened Gran Torino in the three-storey Song Bird building. A lengthy Italian menu replaced the lengthy Cantonese one, with Neil saying the cuisine would be a “better fit” with nearby jewel Margaret. In the basement, Bobbie’s became Bar Torino to match. Now, Bar Torino’s out, too – making room for Pizzeria Sotto.

“Look, I don’t think we’re really that great at running bars, to be honest,” Neil tells Broadsheet. “We make great drinks, but the idea of making it more [of a] restaurant gives us more opportunities when it’s busy down here, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and lunches as well as the evenings.”

Sotto’s pizzas will be thin and crispy – Roman-style – using a dough developed by chefs Richard Purdue and Ervin Mumajesi. They’ll arrive with classic toppings from Sotto’s underground kitchen, with the antipasto, pasta and roast of the day offering supported by the Torino kitchen upstairs.

“I’ve been eating a lot of pizza lately – horrible job, but someone had to do it,” Neil laughs. “The guys have come up with a really lovely sourdough base, but because it’s such a low hydration, like 55 per cent, it rolls really super thin and super crispy. When it’s cooked, it stays really crispy right throughout the base.”

A $39 set menu will include antipasti, pizza and a dessert, and there will be daily specials. “We’re going to do a roast or braise of the day. So it could be a braised lamb shoulder, or it could be porchetta, each day it will change. Then we intend to pretty quickly follow that up with one pasta – a lasagne, a gnocchi – which will change each day as well.”

While they’re at it, the Perrys are rolling back the offering at Cafe Margaret – brekkie service is no longer, and the cafe will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. “We’re just realigning the precinct a little bit, and it’s sort of lifestyle for Sam and I. Seven days a week just got a bit crazy – it was just never-ending … it was just so relentless from six o’clock in the morning till late at night. [Cafe Margaret’s] only 100 square metres, so we were really flogging it to do that size breakfast menu and then back it up with a changeover to do lunch and dinner. I’ve just tried to breathe a little bit and pull it back to what the space can cope with.”

When the cafe opened last November, Broadsheet editor Lucy Bell Bird wrote that the bacon and egg roll was benchmark-setting. Double-smoked bacon, free-range eggs, melty cheese, smoky chipotle mayo and thinly cut spring onions, plus a hash brown “slab” made with Margaret’s twice-cooked potatoes. With brekkie off the cards, will that beauty remain in the lunch slot?

“Sadly no,” says Neil. “Our staff are absolutely bitching about the club sandwich and the bacon and egg roll, and the beautiful sandwiches that we were making – because they were getting them at lunch at 11 on their break every day.” They’ll have to make do with the “cornerstones”: burgers. There’s Perry’s award-winning American cheeseburger and the new Margaret burger. “[It’s] more of the gourmet style. We’re working very hard on making sure that the patty is without peer – now we’re doing our dry aging with that as well. It’s pretty amazing.”

Bar Torino’s final service is Saturday May 23. Pizzeria Sotto will open in its place on Wednesday June 3. The final breakfast service at Cafe Margaret is Sunday May 10.

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