Sydney's ‘first high-end Venezuelan restaurant' to open in Paddington
Within days of the pre-Easter closure of Sydney Latin American restaurant Tequila Mockingbird, the facade of its Paddington terrace home was transformed with bright, luminous yellow paint.
'We've used the yellow from the Venezuela flag,' said the restaurant's owner, restaurateur Michael Fegent. Venezuelan cuisine will follow at TQM, the restaurant rising in Tequila Mockingbird's place when it opens on Thursday, May 8.
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Fegent bills the restaurant as being the 'first high-end restaurant in Sydney doing Venezuelan food'. The seed for the Venezuelan twist came more than a year ago, when Fegent was in Buenos Aires on a research trip for his Balmain restaurant, Casa Esquina.
Fegent sat at the kitchen counter at Fogon Asado, a Buenos Aires restaurant recommended by the Michelin Guide. 'Everything we'd had [in other parrillas] was quite traditional, always steak and potato, but this was different,' Fegent said. Impressed, he spoke with the restaurant's Venezuelan executive chef, Jose Garcia, and half-joked if he'd be interested to move to Australia?
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