Gildas is “a distant love letter to the Basque Country,” says Lennox Hastie of his new 60-seat Surry Hills wine bar, which has been named after what some see as the original and perhaps most famous pintxos dish: a skewered guindilla pepper, anchovy fillet and manzanilla olive.

Known for Firedoor, his internationally acclaimed fire-fuelled restaurant, Hastie has drawn inspiration there from his time at Asador Etxebarri in the Basque Country, a restaurant that has fired the imagination of chefs the world over. 

While it’s a well-worn part of Hastie’s backstory, his time pitching in at a San Sebastian pintxos bar isn’t. “It’s where I heard about Etxebarri in the first place, it crossed my radar just from a couple of people who were talking about it in the bar,” says Hastie. “It’s the old adage that some of the best information comes to you over a wine, or a sherry I suppose.” 

Hastie says that he was “very much in love with the Basque Country,” at a time in his life when he’d walked away from a formative role and before he found Asador Etxebarri. “It was so refreshing after coming from a three Michelin star restaurant to then go to something that was not a kitchen behind closed doors, serving people directly, it has an energy to the movement in terms of the food and the ambience; it kind of makes you see the whole scene unravel at different times of day.” Hastie sees beauty in the simplicity of pintxos, saying “three simple ingredients can come together to make something magical.”

It’s this experience that patrons can expect when Gildas opens on Tuesday, September 6. “I really love this part of Surry Hills,” says Hastie. “People ask us at Firedoor where to have a drink before and after, and while we have a bar there, having another space connected by DNA but separate in identity is really attractive.”

Hastie says Gildas will be lighter and more “feminine in style.” Named after the original pintxos which is the gilda, “it doesn’t have the apostrophe,” says Hastie because “one gilda is never enough.” It’s also named for the inspiration of the original name, the Rita Hayworth film “which harkens back to 1946 and a real transitional period for the Basque Country,” says Hastie. A time of repression under the Franco regime, Gilda was one of the first films to pass the censors, a film that portrayed Rita Hayworth “as a femme fatale, bold, independent, and explosive on screen – something for them to celebrate.”  Casa Vallés is said to have created a pintxos inspired by Hayworth’s character, “using three simple ingredients which made something truly magical: a little sour, spicy, and a little salty, a perfect partner for wine, sherry or vermouth,” says Hastie. “It led to this explosion in pintxos culture.” 

While Hastie has an understandable reverence for the culture of the region, he says he doesn’t want Gildas to be “overtly Basque,” albeit his focus will be the lessons that he took away from the region: the use of great produce from the garden, the sea, and the land, all of which we have in Australia, and translating that. Hastie notes we now produce amazing Spanish varieties of olive oil and that working with great producers, as he does at Firedoor, will be key to pulling together small plates that evolve with the produce. 

The chef says he is “enjoying the open platform to just take an ingredient and throw something together,” as he thinks about the opening menu, and “finding those really good [drink] matches to go with the food offering. Something really food friendly and slightly saline.” A self-confessed sherry fan, Hastie would like to educate patrons on the breadth of sherry while also bringing in his love for vermouth and Basque Country wines that are “quite light, spritzy and easy to knock back, lending themselves well to great food.” The drinks programme won’t necessarily be a list of feted imports, drawing says Hastie from the best we have here also.

Gildas
46-48 Albion Street, Surry Hills
Tue – Sat, 5pm – 12am
gildas.com.au

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