House-made charcuterie, premium wines: Bar Copains team to open dine-in butcher shop

The Sydney hospitality group behind hatted venues Bar Copains, Bessie’s, Vin-Cenzo’s and La Buvette has today announced a new direction for its next venture: a dine-in butcher shop in Potts Point.

Sasi & Sons is set to open next autumn on Macleay Street, offering Potts Point residents an independent nose-to-tail butchery for the first time since Whole Beast Butchery moved to Marrickville in 2020.

The venue plans to work directly with top Australian producers, including Westholme, and create its own line of smallgoods and ready-made meals to sell alongside premium wines, kitchenware and fresh cuts of meat.

“People will be able to come in, buy some meat, grab a bottle of wine and choose from some incredible house-made products,” says chef Nathan Sasi, who co-owns The Goodies Hospitality group with Sali Sasi and Morgan McGlone.

“It’s almost like a one-stop shop for everything, curating a selection of great domestic and international products.”

The concept was inspired by Nathan’s late father Les Sasi, a Hungarian migrant who worked at a Rushcutters Bay butcher shop during his childhood.

“I got into hospitality because of my dad’s work, it kind of inspired me to get into cooking at a young age,” he says. “I always wanted to do something that paid homage to my dad – he’s not around any more, but it’s a really great opportunity to follow in his footsteps.”

Though details are yet to be finalised, there are plans to reference that inspiration throughout the venue. Expect a nostalgic fit-out (designed by long-time collaborators Studio Gram), house-made cevapi and the possibility of ready-made braised cabbage rolls come wintertime.

The team will also use the site to train staff and supply specialty products to Goodies venues across the inner east.

“We’re going to have a massive in-house salami program,” says Sasi. The chef previously ran an ambitious charcuterie program when he opened Nomad in Surry Hills in 2013, before expanding operations at Mercado in the CBD, where he sourced whole beasts and used them to make everything from fresh chorizo to wagyu cecina in the basement.

“That’s the thing I’m really most excited about, to go back to making charcuterie in-house – finding the time and resources to do that over the past few years has been kind of tough.”

The butcher will also serve a tight, seasonal menu from Thursday to Saturday nights, with limited seating around the butcher’s counter. Dishes are still in development, but if the setups at Carne & Cucina in Erina Heights (butcher by day, restaurant by night) or Victor Churchill in Melbourne (where you can shop for full-blood wagyu steaks, or eat one for dinner) are anything to go by, it’s a fair bet we’ll see a range of butcher’s cuts hitting the grill.

“Like with a lot of things we do, there’ll be a heavy European influence, but … it’ll just be about really trying to elevate the produce rather than overly complicating it,” Sasi said.

Sasi & Sons will become the sixth venue in the Goodies Hospitality portfolio, which has expanded rapidly since launching Bar Copains in Surry Hills in December 2022. They’ve gone big on a couple of occasions, but they’ve also become experts at squeezing the most out of small spaces: the seating at Bar Copains is famously tight, while La Buvette, a neighbourhood wine bar that’s fast-become a see-and-be-seen destination for chilled Beaujolais-Villages and French-inspired snacks, only has nine bookable seats.

“As the years have gone on, these small mum-and-dad operators have been out-competed by the big guys and we’ve started to lose that identity here in Australia,” says Sasi, reflecting on Potts Point’s lack of butcher shops.

“I think that’s why we’ve always chosen to open restaurants in the suburbs, because we want to become an integral part of the community … somewhere all the locals can come to, and think, ‘Oh man, I’m lucky to have something like this in my suburb.’”