THE SCENE SETTERS

Food, wine and service make the meal. But it’s the little details – the tableware, the acoustics, the patina of a vintage poster – that are the secret sauce, discovers ALEXANDRA CARLTON.

- ALEXANDRA CARLTON.

The second you step inside the fantasy French post-war jazz salon that is Hubert, in Sydney’s CBD, you can see exactly what its creators, the team at Swillhouse, wanted to achieve. Its fringed lamps, antique brass fittings, towering wall of wine and dramatic velvet drapery immediately transport you into old-world opulence, la vie en rose and louche, luxe good times. But what you may not be immediately aware of is just how granular the team, including brothers Anton and Stefan Forte and Allie Webb, went with the details. On first glance, for example, the old-time advertising posters look like they belong to the Jazz Era. Look again. “I wanted it to look like it was really lived in, so I thought I’d use some artwork and alcohol posters that were older, from the 1800s,” says Webb. “I wanted to give it that layer of age, to make it feel like the place had changed hands over the years.”

Another genius detail that you absorb rather than notice? They never pack away the performance stage, even if no one’s booked to play that night. “We leave the piano and the stage set up all the time, just to give things a sense of anticipation,” says Webb. And another? “We always have fans going. Just to create a little bit of movement in the room.”