Gran Torino

Double Bay Gets a Serious Italian Room

Double Bay has always had opinions about itself. The suburb sits on the harbour's southern edge, a short drive from the CBD, and its dining scene has long tracked the suburb's self-image: comfortable, European in aspiration, and not particularly interested in explaining itself. What it has rarely had, until now, is an Italian room with the kind of sourcing rigour usually reserved for the city's leading Australian-produce restaurants. Gran Torino, at 24 Bay Street, changes that register.

The neighbourhood context matters here. Double Bay attracts a crowd that expects the room to feel right before the food arrives, and Gran Torino reads the brief correctly. The energy on entry is warm without being loud, lively without the kind of manufactured buzz that signals a room trying too hard. Italy's aperitivo tradition, with its specific logic of unhurried drinking that eases into eating, structures the experience from the first moment. You feel the pace in the way drinks are offered before menus, in the rhythm between courses, in a service approach that moves efficiently without projecting impatience.

The Aperitivo Frame and What It Means for the Menu

The aperitivo tradition is one of Italian dining's more misunderstood exports. In Turin or Milan, it is not a marketing concept but a social contract: the evening begins at the bar, settles into the table gradually, and never rushes toward its conclusion. Gran Torino uses that logic to structure a menu that moves through the Italian canon, from antipasti through pasta to seafood, steak and dessert, with clarity rather than complication. The drinks programme reinforces the sequence, with Martinis and spritzes anchoring the early register before a wider bar offer takes over.

This interplay of antipasti, primi, secondi and contorni is not simply an organisational choice. It reflects an understanding of how Italian dining actually works: each stage has its own weight and purpose, and the meal earns its length by respecting that structure. Restaurants in Sydney that attempt Italian in this register often collapse the format into a shorter, more casual experience. Gran Torino holds the structure and lets the evening find its own pace.

For a broader view of how Sydney's Italian-leaning dining sits relative to its Mediterranean neighbours, 1021 Mediterranean and 10 William St represent different approaches to the European canon in the city, while Ormeggio at The Spit in Mosman sits at the more formal Italian end of Sydney's harbour dining.

The Beef Programme: Rare Breeds, Serious Sourcing

The part of Gran Torino that most clearly signals its ambitions sits in the steak section. Steak restaurants in Sydney tend to organise themselves around wagyu grades, Black Angus provenance claims, or dry-ageing periods. Gran Torino's beef programme operates differently, built around rare Australian breeds whose rarity on restaurant menus is itself an editorial statement.

Chianina, one of the oldest and largest cattle breeds in the world and prized specifically for flavour purity rather than marbling intensity, appears on the menu and is available at only a small number of Australian restaurants. CopperTree Minnamurra Speckle Park, alongside Rhone, completes a selection chosen for integrity and depth rather than spectacle. The kitchen treats these cuts with the confidence that comes from serious sourcing: simple preparation, direct cooking, allowing the meat to carry the argument. In a city where steak restaurants frequently bury good product under excessive technique, that restraint is a considered position.

For context, Neil Perry's wider body of work across the Margaret restaurant group has always treated Australian produce as the non-negotiable foundation. Rockpool established that approach at the top of the market, and Gran Torino extends it into a different register: Italian in frame, but governed by the same sourcing logic. Where Saint Peter applies that discipline to seafood, Gran Torino applies it to beef and pasta with equal seriousness.

House-Made Pasta and the Wider Menu

Steak is central but not solitary. The house-made pasta sits on equal footing within the menu's structure, which is the right call for a room aiming at the Italian model rather than the steakhouse model. Pasta made in-house operates as a genuine signal in this category: it requires consistent kitchen investment that ready-made alternatives avoid, and it anchors the primi course with the kind of care that tells you where the kitchen's priorities sit.

The menu's breadth across antipasti, pasta, seafood and steak reflects Italian generosity of format rather than indecision. Done well, this kind of range gives a table the freedom to construct a genuinely Italian evening: begin with antipasti and drinks, move through pasta, arrive at meat or fish for the main weight. Done poorly, it produces a scattered menu with no centre of gravity. Gran Torino manages the balance, and the overall experience holds its coherence from first course to last.

Neil Perry, the Margaret Group, and Why Pedigree Matters Here

Gran Torino belongs to Neil Perry's Margaret family of restaurants, which gives it a specific kind of credibility in the Sydney market. Perry's track record across decades of Australian fine dining, with Rockpool as its most documented expression, means that a new opening under this umbrella carries earned expectation rather than speculative hope. The produce-first discipline, the service standards, and the understanding of how a room should function as a complete experience: these are not promises but established defaults within the group.

Across Australia, the restaurants that have consistently set the standard for produce-led dining include Brae in Birregurra, Attica in Melbourne, and Botanic in Adelaide, all operating at the formal end of the spectrum. Gran Torino occupies a different position: less ceremonial, more convivial, Italian in its underlying philosophy about how a meal should feel. That positioning makes it accessible in a different way from Perry's more celebrated addresses without sacrificing the sourcing standards that define them.

Further afield, Australian restaurants demonstrating similarly serious approaches to place and produce include Hentley Farm in Seppeltsfield, Laura at Pt Leo Estate in Merricks, Pipit in Pottsville, and Provenance in Beechworth, each in a distinct regional context. For coastal-focused sourcing, Salt Water Restaurant in Cairns and Lizard Island Resort represent the far north's version of that commitment.

Planning a Visit

Gran Torino is located at 24 Bay Street, Double Bay, within comfortable reach of central Sydney by both car and public transport. The suburb is served by the Double Bay ferry wharf and several bus routes from the CBD, making the journey direct regardless of where you are staying in the city. The room's aperitivo format means an earlier arrival has genuine logic: begin at the bar, let the evening develop at the table, and allow the format to do what it was designed to do rather than rushing straight to a main course. 10 Pounds and other Double Bay neighbours offer a sense of the wider precinct if you are planning an evening across more than one address. For the full picture of where Gran Torino sits in Sydney's dining scene, our full Sydney restaurants guide maps the category across the city.