From breakfast to late-night lattes, this all-day eatery is a buzzy beachside spot

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Makaveli Bondi is, without doubt, the restaurant and bar fulfilling any dream of a cosmopolitan life. Small, buzzy and, 10 minutes walk from Bondi Beach, slightly glamorous without feeling jumped-up or posh.

Owned and run by friends Jacob Hill and Phill Cooke, both from the UK, it swings from breakfast to dinner, from coffee to cocktails (with late-night coffee). In a slender, wide window-fronted room with a long mirrored left wall, there is warm lighting, small tables and a central concrete-topped bar with counter seating.

On a springish Saturday night, with the Glenayr Avenue footpaths ringing to the sound of chatting Spanish, Italian and Irish passersby, Makaveli, which opened in 2023, is pumping.

Makaveli’s dozen tables and seven counter stools are full. The music is loud. People who look like supermodels are arriving. Rhubarb and ginger spritzes and coconut margaritas are being drunk, and two dexterously busy chefs fill the tiny open kitchen.

Hill and Cooke, behind the bar and on the floor with fellow staff, whiz left, right and centre in black T-shirts, making and pouring drinks, explaining the menu and ferrying food. It’s like sitting in the centre of a small furnitured dance floor with excellent catering.

Before us, at the counter seats, are a sunset-hued nogroni – a fine non-alcoholic negroni – and the Willowdene, a cocktail made with lemongrass and kaffir lime gin, elderflower liqueur and watermelon, and named after Hill’s childhood street in Manchester.

The chefs pass us Sicilian olives and warm, garlic-buttered sourdough.

No one, whether drinking Shifting Sands Victorian pinot noir or evening espressos, gives them any more attention than the rest of the room. All are far too busy consuming smooth Gippsland blue cheese with honeycomb; rouge meadows of silky beef carpaccio topped with shaved parmesan, herb aioli, fennel and walnut; or herby kingfish crudo with leek ajo blanco, capers and radish.

We are digging into sweet potato gnocchi mains – one with brown butter, cherry tomatoes, crispy sage and ricotta salsa; the other with rich beef ragu, pesto, ricotta, parmesan and crispy kale.

Strong on flavour and not overdone, it has a fine-dining feel – for dwelling upon rather than scoffing. This theory collapses when plates of light and melty burnt Basque cheesecake arrive.

Hill, who is opening a second venue with Cooke in September called Pocket Bondi, opposite North Bondi Beach, says Makaveli’s mood changes distinctly between breakfast and dinner.

“We put a lot of thought into that,” he says. “It’s obviously different food but it’s also different music and changed lighting. I always remember one girl came in, looked around and said, ‘Oh, I was here this morning and now it feels completely different’.”

Anyone returning in the morning can eat Tuga pastries, a chia bowl and dishes that include eggs, avocado or cured meat. The toasted Brickfields foccacia with prosciutto, pesto, burrata and marinated cherry tomatoes is popular. The footpath window bench with cushions is a good spot, day or night.

It is important to stress Makaveli’s coffee machine stays on into the night, a particularly happy instance for one US stock trader neighbour whose work starts after sunset.

Hill says Makaveli, which is essentially a buzzing bar with great food, was a long-held dream for him and Cooke.

“We’d go on holiday, to Bali, Bangkok, Singapore, even Noosa, and write notes about everything we tried,” he says. “This was before we even knew we were gonna have a bar. We’d set up a bar at house parties and there’d be big queues and all the cocktails on there were special recipes we’d made over the years.”

They’ve also leant heavily into community collaborations, with parts of the menu and decor made by locals. There’s a weekly 6.30am run club, special food nights and bottomless brunches. Hill says there are insatiable requests for Makaveli merchandise.

Now they just have to finish gutting, designing and building Pocket Bondi for its opening in three weeks, while running Makaveli seven days a week.

“My girlfriend says I won’t have time to sleep,” Hill says. “But the sun’s coming up earlier now it’s spring.”