The most anticipated restaurant opening of 2024 is also Justin Hemmes’ most intriguing

Good Luck Restaurant Lounge will open on Wednesday, April 24, and is not only one of Sydney’s most anticipated hospitality openings of the year, it’s also one of its most intriguing.

Shrouded in more pre-launch mystery than usual (even for a Merivale project), executive chef Mike Eggert says the menu will feature 80 dishes channelling both Tokyo and influences from Merivale’s Italian-leaning Totti’s.

The opening will come less than a week after Justin Hemmes, the owner of Merivale, opens JAM Record Bar this evening in the IVY precinct, which Good Food revealed this week.

Good Luck’s Bridge Street entrance is crowned by a small sign that reads: “Feeling lucky”, guests will then descend the stairs into the basement of the historic Burns Philp & Co building, a site Hemmes snapped up during the pandemic. Good Luck sprawls over two levels with live seafood tanks, a four-metre charcoal grill, splashes of green stone, utilitarian chairs, custom vintage glass light fittings and a seating capacity of more than 200.

Eggert, who put Totti’s on the culinary map, says he has always held on to the Asian influence he flexed working at Billy Kwong and his 2017 Good Luck Pinbone pop-up in Kensington. “People probably aren’t aware there’s soy in the bolognese at Totti’s,” Eggert divulges.

“The first thing guests will see as they enter Good Luck is a massive wood fire hearth alongside three supercharged woks. Smokey, wood fired flavours with lots of fresh herbs, citrus and chilli,” Eggert says.

He points to Japan’s Wafu Italian restaurants – where chefs reimagine Italian dishes through a Japanese lens – as part inspiration for Good Luck.

Eggert and Sri Lankan-born head chef Prince Jeganathan’s opening menu is adventurous. Paccheri pasta is teamed with spicy scallop and sake in one dish, another matches brown butter and snow crab. Eggert is excited about using Japanese ingredients: subtle Japanese peppers pop up where you might expect Sichuan, smoked soy-poached chicken is doused in a shiso dressing, an egg noodle dish will combine Japanese whitebait and shishito peppers.

“The tiles on the columns [at Good Luck] are from Japan,” designer Kelvin Ho says of his nod to Eggert’s culinary mission statement. But in the same way the chef doesn’t want to box himself in, Ho quips he’s taken an “all you can eat” approach to the design.

“There’s a bit of Hong Kong family restaurants,” Ho says of the inspiration for the interior, which includes a vintage Asian travel poster and banquette upholstery that varies from pink to floral.

“I like that collision of home spun next to opulence,” the designer says of a space where chandeliers, seafood tanks and a luxe private dining room mingle with ubiquitous restaurant chairs. Ho credits Merivale Styling Director Bettina Hemmes for hand-picking some of the accoutrements and lamps that make Good Luck styling sizzle.

Part of the intrigue surrounding the project were early rumours about its culinary direction. At one stage the site was tipped to be a Middle Eastern-inspired restaurant, then Greek. Various chefs inside the Merivale empire were linked at different times with the project, with speculation chefs pitched their boss concepts.

“It’s not really like that. I usually have in my mind who’s going to fit [a project],” Hemmes explains. “The most important thing is to tap into a chef’s passion, what they want to cook, and we mould around that.”

Good Luck Restaurant Lounge opens on Wednesday, April 24 at 11 Bridge Street, Sydney. merivale.com/venues/good-luck