one spot, two places: firefly and el guapo cantine – neutral bay

When Firefly was first opened, it was a tasteful, classy place with a great wine list, especially pinot noir. Their manageress, with terrible eye makeup, didn’t like dealing with women, but deals were deals.

We enjoyed their zucchini fries with za’atar, haloumi and watermelon with chardonnay vinaigrette, truffle, mushroom and mozzarella arancini, and their pizzas served on rustic wooden slabs.

Over the years, things started to change, though. Their menu wasn’t all that interesting anymore, and that great wine list I mentioned above started to change as well. Their ‘wall of pinot noir’ was replaced with less interesting wines that you could easily get from a bottle shop.

They went through different managers and kitchen staff. At some point, there was a husband-and-wife team of a chef and a manager from Canada. The food was nice during their time, but they didn’t last long either.

What you see below was the last food we had at Firefly before they packed up and went.

After Firefly was shut down, a falafel place popped up. It looked more like a lunch place rather than a restaurant.

They painted over beautiful dark timber window frames and doors to this dirty cream colour and also painted the name of the place—whatever it was, I certainly can’t remember—all over the wooden panels around the shop. It looked cheap, to say the least.

Well, the falafel place didn’t last long. After it was shut down, a Mexican restaurant popped up. Only 100 metres away from the well-established SoCal. What were they thinking?

They painted over the falafel place’s name and put their own name on top of that. It still looked cheap and characterless.

You would’ve forgiven them for turning a classy-looking place into a beach taco place in rural parts of Mexico if they had good food, but that wasn’t the case.

We tried El Guapo Cantine a few times; the food gradually got worse. The last time we had something to eat there, one of the salsas was too salty, so we couldn’t eat it at all. When they asked if everything was okay, we told them about the salty salsa. The salsa was taken back to the kitchen, to their chef, and he told us that he wouldn’t eat it either. They didn’t charge us for it, but we didn’t go back there again.

Now, there is a new place, a pizza place at that corner called Pizza Pocket. It’s a young and vibey place, and their pizza is interesting. They kept the dirty cream colour, though.