Fine diner restaurant Cinnabar in Blackheath is reopening on June 24 - with a new private dining experience on offer.
The upstairs area in the restaurant has been extensively renovated to create two separate and private dining rooms for small gatherings.
The Loft will cater to parties of minimum six and maximum eight with a choice of three set menus lovingly created by chef and co-owner, Corinne Evatt.
The idea is to pre-choose one of the grazing menus (one is vegetarian) and accompanying drinks.
Delicacies on the menus include tiger prawns tempura with a Thai chilli dipping sauce, balsamic mushrooms with whipped fetta, Maghreb oyster blade lamb shoulder and, to finish, strawberry cherry brandy meringue with mascarpone vanilla bean cream.
Fellow co-owner, Mary-Jane Craig, said the aim was to create an intimate dinner party feel - with someone else doing all the hard work.
Like so many other Mountains businesses, the coronavirus hit Cinnabar hard.
They considered, but rejected, doing takeaway, Ms Craig said. "It was never going to be viable for us economically. It would have meant a whole new business model."
Instead, the team - who ran the hatted Ashcrofts restaurant for more than a decade - used the enforced closure to create The Loft.
The two private rooms are tastefully decorated with quilts of local textile artist, Lindsay Duncan, who has a history of reworking old or vintage fabrics to tell new stories and visual cultural depictions of the past and present.
The restaurant reopens on June 24 with a reduced number of tables downstairs and The Loft available on Friday and Saturday nights. For more information and bookings, see cinnabar.kitchen, phone 4787 7269 or email info@cinnabar.kitchen.
But just as Cinnabar reopens comes news that two of Blackheath's other restaurants have closed since the lockdown. Fumo in Govetts Leap Road and the Piedmont Inn on the highway have both ceased trading.
