“Re might be the most ambitious bar to open in Sydney this millennium. Not only is the 80-seat venue built on diverted waste – from benchtops made with recycled milk bottles, to banquettes clothed in pineapple-leaf fibre – it’s Whiley’s aim for Re to be 100 per cent waste-free and a blueprint for how bars can operate in the future.” Callan Boys, Good Food
Revered bartender Matt Whiley (Scout, London) partnered with Maurice Terzini (Icebergs, Cicciabella) to create RE; a bar that challenges you to rethink everything you know about waste. Whiley and Terzini collaborated with Alfred to push the boundaries of sustainable design while ensuring Re still looks and feels like any other bar.
“We want to serve great food and drinks and make sure people leave happier than when they arrived,” says Whiley. “That should be the name of the game at any bar. People don’t want a lesson when they go out, and we certainly don’t want to preach zero-waste to anyone. If guests ask about what’s happening behind the scenes, however, we’re more than happy to tell them.”
Everything on the menu is made from ingredients either grown on site, collected as seconds from supply chains or waste products from other businesses in the area.
At the bar you’ll find mind-melting cocktails that not only make use of waste products, but make them incredibly desirable. For example, take the Bone Dust Martini, dry as a literal bone and enhanced by bone dust collected from iconic Woollahra butchery, Victor Churchill. Or the Saint Peter iteration, with salty fresh trout roe from Josh Niland’s famous seafood restaurant.
The ethos behind RE is set to change the way the bar industry approaches waste, making sustainability a creative platform for innovation. Being sustainable never tasted so good.
