Ashe is big, bold and brash

The first half of 2026 has turned out to be a bit of a yawn for restaurant openings in Sydney, at least on the pricier end of the dining spectrum. There seemed to be an endless march of mid-Italians and mid-steak houses, most of which have blended into one dreary smear of cacio e pepe and Café de Paris. The more casual end of town did quite nicely – plenty of cafes, bakeries, natty noodle joints – but the big blockbuster openings all seemed to run out of steam by the end of 2025.

That is until Khanh Nguyen and the Bentley Group started toiling away secretly on Ashe, their new Southeast Asian-style grill on Ash Street, a grown-up sibling to their blockbuster King Clarence a few streets over. It's all big flavours, a smouldering thrum of deep house and a racy lipstick-red bar next door, Vespertine, with a 4am licence. And thank God for that. It's like they dumped a bowl of birdseye chillies into the Sydney food scene's snoring mouth and jolted it awake.

You enter from a discreet doorway on Ash Street (butting right up against Justin Hemmes' ivy precinct), and descend a few steps into a jungle-y dining room of low light, jade green tables, bamboo and palms, designed by the group's faithful collaborator Pascale Gomes-McNabb. The banquettes are the seats to aim for – it's worth dropping a note onto your booking to ask for the curved one on the far left of the kitchen: the best position in the house.

I'd skip the cocktails and head straight for Nick Hildebrandt's high-voltage wine collection, which has been carefully designed to go head-to-head with Nguyen's spice and umami-rich flavours – and at least stands a fighting chance. 'Môt hai ba, yo!' reads a note on the list, which basically means 'bottoms up!' in Vietnamese. You want grüner, rieslings, big aromatic chardonnays. You'll need the fortification for getting your head round this delightfully complex menu, where nothing at all is shy.