2025 Gallery

Reflection by Cassie Hansen

When it comes to hospitality, longevity is a rare achievement; for hospitality design it’s rarer still. Restaurants open with a flurry of excitement and often fade just as quickly. To last a decade is to become part of a city’s culinary landscape. To last over 13 years – without a major interior overhaul – is implausible. And yet The Apollo, a modern Greek restaurant in Potts Point, Sydney, has done just that – not only surviving, but thriving thanks to a skilful balance of food, architecture and care.

At the heart of this success story is a long-standing friendship between chef and co-owner Jonathan Barthelmess and interior architect George Livissianis. Jonathan and George were family friends, spending time together as kids, linked by their Greek heritage. Fast forward to 2012 and Jonathan was ready to launch his first venue after years working through the restaurant ranks, while George, having worked for Burley Katon Halliday for several years, had branched out on his own.

“It was absolutely always going to be George who was going to design my first restaurant,” says Jonathan. “And he’s done everything since.”

The site, which had been a restaurant called India Down Under, came with its own history: decades of built-up cooking residue, a dated 1990s fitout and “the smell of off onions,” as Jonathan puts it. But the site was hiding some surprises – arched windows, original cornices and a decorative ceiling. At the time, Potts Point was a burgeoning and exciting food scene, and the restaurant’s corner site had many interested parties. What followed was a rapid commitment – one chance to look, one decision to make. They took it.

From the start, the design approach was not about invention, but deconstruction. The Apollo wasn’t designed so much as uncovered. False ceilings were pulled away to reveal Mediterranean-style arches; plasterboard was ripped back to expose the textured bones of the building. Every discovery influenced the next step. “We were very … anxious and excited in terms of what we were going to discover and how we could use that to build the rest of the space,” George recalls.

Rather than fight the quirks of the architecture – awkward columns, a disjointed dining-kitchen layout – George leaned in. “To me, the fact that there’s columns everywhere just allows the space to have more intimate parts to it,” he says. “I didn’t see that as a negative.” The separation of the kitchen led to the design of an oversized marble bar that became the beating heart of the room. "It wasn't just a sea of tables and chairs," he says. "That bar helped celebrate the process of food and beverage making and added activity into the room.”

The restaurant’s tactile materiality reflects its culinary ethos: simple, refined and deeply rooted in place. Textured, raw walls are contrasted with smooth fibre cement sheeting. Marble, oak and soft lighting create a welcoming atmosphere, while a neon pink datum line wraps the space in a quiet hum of colour. This line – at once architectural and emotional – draws from a deeply personal symbol: “It was a reference to the island that Jonathan and I kind of originate from,” George says, referring to the island of Kastellorizo in the eastern Mediterranean. The red, inspired by an old Greek-Australian journal, wraps around the room like memory itself – subtle, embedded and permanent.

The interior’s longevity lies in this kind of restraint. Nothing is overdone. "You try and work out how to build a beautiful room without doing too much,” George explains. “The least moves possible.” Thirteen years on, the dining room hasn’t changed besides some refreshed upholstery and tabletops.

If there’s a word that comes up often in conversation about The Apollo, it’s “nostalgia.” For Jonathan, the food needed to recall family gatherings and village life – what he described to George in the earliest brief as “polished village food.” The interior mirrors that duality: refined but raw, modern yet timeless, urban yet deeply personal.

In the early days, no one could have predicted how enduring the restaurant would be. “You’re not sure of anything,” says George. “You go through all those emotions – ‘Is anyone going to turn up when we open the door?’” But with trust in each other and in the clarity of the vision, together they built something that lasted.

And for George, even after years of designing restaurants all over the world, The Apollo remains something special. “It attracted so much attention for my studio … and is also full of personal memories for me and my family … birthdays, dinners, milestones and that kind of thing. It is much like going to your grandmother’s house, because there’s familiarity about it.”

Two young Greek-Australian men, each embarking on their own businesses, took a leap of faith and created a quiet institution. In a city where restaurants come and go with the seasons, The Apollo is still standing – solid, textured and full of stories.