We’re off to a good start upon entering Lola’s Italian & Bar with venue manager and sommelier Mon Ditbunjong extending a warm, friendly welcome. It’s a sunny winter’s day and Mon recommends we take a seat on the sun-splashed terrace overlooking Bondi Beach. It’s a great shout. 

The restaurant named after the daughter of restaurateur Marco Ambrosino (Fratelli Paradiso, 10 William St) recently underwent a slight rebrand. And while there were reasons enough to visit Lola’s Level 1, hospitality veterans Ambrosino and Manny Spinola (Gunners Barracks, The Tea Room QVB) wanted to leave diners with no doubt about the new direction of the menu, flipping the focus from Mediterranean to 100 per cent classic Italian. 

The beachside bar and restaurant is not the kind of see-and-be-seen Eastern Suburbs hang. Rather, it’s reflective of a demand from locals for a luxurious space to wine and dine that is slightly removed from the busy main drag. The restaurant is on level one of an upmarket dining hub adjacent to the soaring atrium at the heart of the QT Bondi. Designed by H&E Architects, Lola’s Italian & Bar itself is elegant and warm, with large, mirrored archways, and artworks by Marco’s wife, Pina, lining the stucco-finished walls. 

Everything here is an expression of exquisite, good taste and the sort of place I wish existed when I lived around the corner on Warners Ave. From here, we observe backpackers boarding the 380 bound for the Junction, local surfers wriggling in and out of their wetsuits, and punters heading into the newly reimagined Bondi Pavilion for the annual Bondi Festival. It’s lunch with a side serve of barefoot Bondi hipster vibes.

The thing to do at Lola’s is indulge in the lunch special of three courses for $49. As Mon explains, we can mix and match between antipasti, mains and dessert or add in a salad, or glass of wine. Mon is also a sommelier (lured along with head chef Toby Stansfield from the Ragazzi Group) and my ‘first course’ is a chardonnay produced by winemaker Richie Harkham, another Eastern Suburbs local.

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The wine paired with share plates of vitello tonnato and burrata with radicchio, agrodolce and pine nuts is beautifully coherent. We order a few slices of Grain Organic Bakery sourdough to ‘fare la scarpetta’; mop up the voluptuous tonnato sauce and scoop up the burrata to make the most of the dish. 

The fish today is blue-eye trevalla served with curls of green frisee in a punchy puddle of horseradish and black garlic sauce. Another noteworthy offering is the bistecca al minute, which sings in a rich, decadent black garlic sauce with a tangle of rucola on the side. 

The meal is made even more memorable thanks to the service delivered by Mon, who brings a bit of welcome Bondi banter to the table. The entire experience is so unerringly excellent we’ve organised a return visit. Next time, though, we’re coming for dinner so we can enjoy the sumptuous surrounds of the main dining room, which gets bonus points for being a carbon-positive environment and having a foosball table. But first, we’re off for a swim at Icebergs. 

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