Michelin-trained Freyja team to open Spezia in Sydney

Jae Bang and Aaron Caccia will lead Florence Guild’s first Sydney venue, bringing serious kitchen pedigree into a new Italian opening at Circular Quay.

The team behind Melbourne’s hatted Freyja is heading to Sydney with Spezia, a new Italian restaurant opening at The Lands by Capella precinct near Circular Quay.

Executive chef Jae Bang and head chef Aaron Caccia will lead the kitchen, bringing experience from some of the world’s most respected restaurants into a venue that looks set to trade across the full day rather than lean on fine dining formality alone.

Set within the heritage precinct behind a narrow sandstone passageway, Spezia is expected to open in Q2 2026.

A kitchen team worth watching

What gives this opening weight is the team behind it.

Jae trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and went on to cook at El Bulli, Daniel and Re-naa before relocating to Australia to lead Freyja. Aaron, originally from Lake Como, also worked at Re-naa and Noma before joining Freyja, and will now relocate to Sydney permanently to run the kitchen day to day.

For chefs, that is the real story. Not just that Spezia has strong names attached to it, but that two cooks shaped in exacting kitchens are now applying that background to a much broader format.

Beyond another big Italian opening

Sydney does not need another Italian restaurant built on vague promises of authenticity.

What makes Spezia more interesting is that the concept appears to have a clear point of view. The restaurant takes its name from La Spezia, the Ligurian port city long connected to maritime trade, and uses that idea to explore the spice routes that once influenced Italian cooking more directly than they do today.

That gives the kitchen something more useful than a theme. It gives it a framework.

Rather than using Italian food as a comfort zone, Jae and Aaron seem to be treating it as a format with enough structure to carry subtle disruption. That matters, because chefs know how easy it is for a concept like this to slip into surface-level styling if the food itself does not hold together.

What the menu suggests

Early previews point to handmade pasta, slow-cooked sauces and seasonal produce, with spice-led touches running quietly through the menu.

Examples already flagged include cavatelli alla nerano with zucchini, pink peppercorn and nutmeg, plus tiramisu with allspice and a saffron martini on the drinks side.

That sounds promising because it suggests restraint. The idea only works if the kitchen knows when to stop. Too much emphasis on the spice angle and it starts to feel forced. Too little and there is no reason for the concept to exist. The challenge will be landing somewhere more confident than clever.

A very different test from Freyja

Jae’s work at Freyja helped define a style built around preservation, fermentation and a Nordic-influenced reading of Australian produce.

Spezia asks different questions. It is larger in scale, broader in audience and more exposed to the rhythms of all-day trade. The food still needs precision, but the room has to breathe. Guests need to want to drop in, stay, and return, not simply admire the idea of the place.

That shift is what makes this opening interesting from an industry perspective. Running a hatted dining room is one challenge. Building a venue that can carry serious technique without becoming self-conscious is another.

If Spezia gets that balance right, it could become one of Sydney’s more interesting openings this year, not because of the pedigree behind it, but because of how well that pedigree is translated into a restaurant people genuinely want to use.

Spezia is set to open at The Lands by Capella in Sydney in Q2 2026.