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I was heavily invested in the opening of Wander months before chef and owner Alexis Noble opened the doors to the intimate eatery early in 2026. I’d walked past the site to see her painting walls, hauling rubble into a skip and planting out a garden bed full of pretty natives. I’d also followed along on Instagram to see the beautiful retro Namco tables and chairs she’d travelled across Sydney to secure. By the time the restaurant opened its doors, half the neighbourhood felt like they had a stake in the place. Wander sits on the Wills Road strip in Woolooware – or Woollahra-ware as I like to call it – a strip made hip with new arrivals like Zee’s Cafe and homewares store Girl Meraki. Six months in, locals have claimed the neighbourhood eatery as an extension of their own living room – and the tables fill quickly as the night wears on.
Alexis grew up in Cronulla, cut her teeth in some of Sydney’s top kitchens like Otto and Restaurant Balzac, and was shortlisted for the Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year Award. Like a lot of Aussies in their 20s, Alexis then took a sabbatical, travelling to California, New York and London, where a working holiday turned into seven years running her original Wander restaurant in Stoke Newington. In 2021, Wander was named 88th in the UK’s Best Restaurants 2021, according to the Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards. The restaurant also received a favourable review from Fay Maschler in The Standard in the UK, where Alexis built a reputation for a menu that shifted with the seasons. When Wander closed its London doors in 2024, coming home was always the plan. The restaurant landed in Woolooware in 2026, a short stroll from the Cronulla Alexis left behind and, as it happens, from my own front door.
We visit for the early sitting in the lilac light of the early evening when the restaurant looks warm, cosy and inviting. Tonight, the menu is dedicated to Bologna, because that is how Noble cooks: chasing places, memories and ingredients wherever they lead. The $55 set menu is one of the best-value dinners going in Sydney right now: four courses that read like Alexis’s highlights reel from Emilia-Romagna. The menu is also set to pivot to Piemonte, Napoli and Roma and includes a larger seven-course option for $80.
Alexis is joined in the open kitchen by a competent local lass and service is shared between the two of them. First up is a starter of Flour sourdough served alongside a puddle of friggione, a slow-cooked slick of onion and capsicum that is a deep, rich red, and both savoury and sweet. We spread it thick on slices of the wholemeal bread, then drape it with curls of LP’s smoky mortadella and salty shards of Parmigiano Reggiano. It’s a mighty morsel that pairs beautifully with a fruit-forward juicy and vibrant Nord-Sud Rouge shiraz grenache from the Adelaide Hills. I’ve also been served the Flour sourdough with whipped Vegemite, which is an unctuous exercise in umami. The bread and friggione arrive on pretty, bespoke pottery that Alexis crafts herself. Those following along on Instagram will know the chef’s covetable ceramics are now available for sale at pop-up stalls held throughout the year.
On the Friday night we visit, chef Alexis is dressed in Newtown-cool dungarees, her locks tucked back in a bandana as she delivers a large wodge of lasagne verde to our table. It’s the kind of dish that invites a bit of oohing and aahing and we dutifully rotate it on the plate to examine the layers. In this instance, Bologna’s signature spinach pasta is layered with a rich ragù that has been bubbling on the stove for the better part of a day and a besciamella that clings to each sheet of pasta. It is finished with a vibrant salsa verde.
Dessert is fior di latte gelato, milky and cold and faintly sweet, finished with a drizzle of proper aceto balsamico di Modena and a slick of good olive oil flecked with flakes of sea salt. I would recommend mixing it all together so that the sweet, savoury and acidity all land in one scoop.
The wine list rewards a wander of its own. It leans hard into Australian orange and natural drops with names as playful as the food: a Dormilona Orenji from Margaret River, a McLaren Vale verdelho cheekily labelled Hipster Juice, a Vinteloper Rosé from the Adelaide Hills that would also be a killer match for the mortadella. There is a German Müller-Thurgau in there too, Smells Like Mean Spirit, in case anyone needed proof this list does not take itself too seriously either.
Wander might sit just down the road from the familiar sands of Wanda Beach, but a night at this modern Italian bistro feels entirely transportive. A neighbourhood bistro worth wandering across Sydney for.
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