Good Luck Restaurant Lounge

Tokyo by way of Hong Kong and Brooklyn – that’s the very loose brief for Merivale’s very fun CBD diner, Good Luck Restaurant Lounge, sitting pretty in the basement of the historic Burns Philp & Co building on Bridge Street.

Good Luck takes its name from Merivale executive chef Mike Eggert’s seminal Sydney pop-up, Good Luck Pinbone, which he ran in 2017 before joining the group to spearhead Totti’s Bondi. Eggert and Merivale CEO Justin Hemmes spent three years working on this spiritual successor.

The original Pinbone was a rule-breaker, meshing Chinese influences with Italian ones. Good Luck goes even more off-piste. There are handmade egg noodles spun with shishito peppers and Japanese whitebait; smoked soy-poached chicken in shiso dressing; and fire-roasted prawns with tomato miso, chicken skin and cereal crunch from the woodfire hearth. Eggert leads the kitchen alongside head chef Prince Jeganathan (Mumu, Mr Wong).

On the drinks side, group creative cocktail lead James Irvine opened with the Good Luck Colada (cardamom, coconut, yum), a frozen number to rival Mumu’s famous yuzu slushie. There’s also a globetrotting wine list by sommelier Jacqueline Doucette.

To match the menus, Hemmes has created a venue concept inspired by Tokyo in the 1970s, with those aforementioned shades of Brooklyn and Hong Kong mixed in. The subterranean sandstone space – previously a lumberyard in the 1800s – has room for 200 diners, and features three live seafood tanks, two bars and multiple private dining rooms.