It's all Hunky Dory at Bruno's

The curiously-named Hunky Dory Social Club had me at ‘hello’. Or rather, ‘Hunky’. What kind of place, with that name, could not be awesome? Spread over two upstairs levels – both overlooking busy Oxford Street – it is a darkly low-touch cool space that boasts one of Sydney’s very few rooftop bars.

Cocktail on the roof at Hunky Dory Social Club, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

There’s something very movie-like about sipping cocktails on a dilapidated couch, looking up to a brightly-lit billboard and open skies, and out onto the street traffic.

The new cocktail menu was also a treat, with some heavy hitting spirits in the mix of light-hearted titles, including the Heartbreaker (featuring Hennessy VSOP, Grand Marnier, PAMA pomegranate liqueur and blueberries).

Food is available in the bar, sent up from Bruno’s – the restaurant that occupies the ground floor. But for the full menu including mains, we headed down the couple of flights of stairs and took up a spot-lit table in the charming bricked room adorned with imagery of none other than Jesus Christ, aside a crucifix and other religious wall hangings.

Insude Bruno's, Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

With its cosy seating inside as well as a communal table out the front and a couple of tables on the footpath, Bruno’s has an unassuming trattoria feel – not to mention the large, crocheted rounds of black yarn beneath the glass-topped tables.

There’s a varied menu of starters, pasta and pizza. And from one look at a pizza that made it to the upstairs bar, we were definitely getting in on this woodfired cheese and carb action.

Nduja and goat's cheese with pizza wedges

I’m currently, and have been for a good few years now, in a love affair with nduja - the Italian salami paste that is increasingly common in Sydney's Italian restaurants.

The nduja at Bruno’s is by far the spiciest version I’ve tried, causing pain just mouthfuls into my quenelle of sorts. Despite the fiery pain, it’s some pretty good nduja with discernable chilli and meat bits.

The goat’s cheese served alongside is softly soothing; following the same dairy-over-chilli philosophy as yoghurt with Indian curries, I think. There’s not quite enough of the flat bread, which are pizza base style wedges, but we make do by smearing the nduja onto the goat’s cheese and rocket leaves.

Prawn and zucchini tagliolini

We’re immediately impressed with the large-headed prawns poking out of the thin eggy pasta, with halved rounds of rather overcooked zucchini in the mix. The tagliolini noodles have a very distinct eggy flavour and could have done with a little more oil or sauce, but were entirely pleasant nonetheless.

Gigantic prawns are never my favourites, but these had great texture along with their intense flavour. I kept wishing that the zucchini was thrown in at the last few seconds rather than last few minutes, but then we had pizza to distract us.

Prosciutto pizza

The pizza arrives at the table whole; which explains the rather sharp knives we were presented with in the beginning. At first touch with the knife (not the easiest thing to slice up, mind you), the crisp yet chewy base showed no signs of sogginess and every sign of greatness. Which it was.

Despite the extremely salty addition of very good prosciutto, I couldn’t stop eating the fabulous pizza, which was lightly spread with tomato sauce with plenty of stringy cheese. This pizza was definitely up there with the best of bases, though I acknowledge that this one had the benefit of pretty dry toppings.

Which could only mean a return visit to check out potentially soggier toppings on that excellent Bruno’s base. And that’s hunky dory by me.