Chef Michael Lo Presti and restaurant manager Rachael Trewin bring combined talents from Sixpenny, Momofuku Seibo and Automata to the former Moon Park site.July 28, 2026Lo Presti’s is an “unassumingly delicious” new restaurant overlooking Redfern Park, opened by former Baba’s Place head chef Michael Lo Presti and restaurant manager Rachael Trewin. “It’s not going to look flashy, but there’s going to be a lot of care in what we do,” said Lo Presti, of the Mediterranean-leaning menu featuring grilled pork with local pipis, ling wrapped in vine leaves, and an avgolemono sour cocktail, inspired by the Greek lemon chicken soup. It took three months for Lo Presti, Trewin, their friends and family to prepare the 50-seater restaurant, located at the former Moon Park site, for its Thursday launch. It’s a two-storey corner terrace, with one of Lo Presti’s father Greg’s old sketches repurposed into an illuminated sign out front.Opening a restaurant of his own was always part of the plan, Lo Presti said. He grew up in the family’s Darlinghurst restaurant of the same name and watched as regulars became friends. “My mum and my dad, particularly, were part of the community – they would go to birthday parties and weddings with all these people who were regulars, who went in there every day and had their coffee,” he said.Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.Sign up“Now that I look back on those times, it really shaped the way I look at food, and the way I look at service and hospitality.”Pork and pipis.Dion GeorgopoulosTrewin and Lo Presti met early in their culinary careers, both working at now-closed Sydney restaurants Momofuku Seibo and Automata. Lo Presti went on to three-hatted Stanmore restaurant Sixpenny, and was a finalist in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2024 Young Chef of the Year award. Their friendship endured, and for the past two years they worked alongside each other at hatted Marrickville restaurant Baba’s Place. They’d always talked about wanting to open a place of their own, somewhere they’d want to go for dinner themselves, said Lo Presti. It made sense to do it together. “I went on holiday down to Melbourne and Tasmania and I saw all these small, independently run restaurants and I’m like … I think it’s time, now, to do it myself,” he said.“It’s getting harder and harder these days to open up an independent restaurant and we thought we’d just get our foot in the door.” Photo: Dion GeorgopoulosThe goal was to create a warm, inviting space where diners could just as well walk in for a glass of Montepulciano at the bar, or book ahead for a relaxed Sunday lunch on the terrace.“I want it to feel like you’re coming over to someone’s house for a dinner party, but it’s actually a functioning restaurant,” Trewin said. The menu is deliberately understated. A plate of roasted capsicum is dehydrated, just slightly (“so it’s a little bit chewier and the flavours are fortified”), and dressed simply with Pedro Ximenez vinegar. Braised kangaroo tail, swaps oxtail for “such an underutilised cut”, marinated overnight in an “almost-Caribbean style” spice blend, then braised until it’s “sticky, rich and dark”, served with salsa. Hanger steak.Dion Georgopoulos“It’s rich, but there’s respite in that dish with salsa and fresh mint,” Lo Presti said. The wine list stays predominantly local, offering a range of price points, with a rotating option imported from Europe. “We want it to be a warm, comfortable place … but fun, a little bit loud, with a lot of regulars … you know, you come in, you sit in the same spot, we know what you like,” Lo Presti said.“I think it will be the kind of place where people come in and feel like they’re contributing something to the restaurant, like they’re part of something, because customers really do contribute.”Open lunch Sat-Sun; dinner Thu-SatLevel 1, 34b Redfern Street, Redfern (entrance via Elizabeth Street), loprestisrestaurant.comBianca Hrovat – Bianca is Good Food’s Sydney eating out and restaurant editor.From our partners