Kings Cross: there’s a sweet Italian scent wafting your way. In the streets around the famed strip, veteran restaurateur Maurice Terzini has confirmed he’ll open a cabaret bar on Bayswater Road in spring, while a block over on Kellett Street a wine bar with an Italian-leaning menu opened last week. And there’s strong speculation the team behind Potts Point Italian stalwart Fratelli Paradiso will join the party, with a new venue on Roslyn Street.

All three sites are within 100 metres of each other, in the Kings Cross-Potts Point precinct hit hard by the lockouts laws but recently bouncing back. “Kings Cross has a lot of that beautiful history we want to embrace,” Terzini says of the area, and the site he and business partner Peter Shopovski (of queer collective House of Mince) have chosen for their venture, Mirage KX, has some edge and infamy.

“It used to be dancers,” Terzini says. “We really believe in the Cross, it’s coming back.” They are calling Mirage KX a residency, because the building is slated for development in the long term, but the Italian-Australian restaurateur is promising a little glitz with the “supper and a show” concept.

The local rumour mill has also been running hot regarding the incoming tenant at the former home of Gourmet Life, on the corner of Roslyn Street and Ward Avenue. It’s prime hospo turf, with Piccolo Bar and the new Caravinwine bar and restaurant for neighbours. A spokesman for the corner site confirmed there is an “exciting” incoming tenant, but declined to name them. Sources who asked not to be named have told the Herald it’s the team behind of Fratelli Paradiso and 10 William. Owners Enrico and Giovanni Paradiso were contacted, but hadn’t replied for comment before time of publication.

There’s a strong Italian DNA to the dinner menu created by chefs Keno Perlas (ex Monopole, Margaret) and Jeffrey Sue (Ormeggio, Rockpool) at Arms Length, which opened last week at Kellett Street, after relocating from Surry Hills.

Arms Length slides into the former home of the famed Dean’s Cafe, where a generation of Sydneysiders had their first taste of nachos. With a dinner menu filled with calamari fritti and rigatoni and ragu, co-owner Rebecca O’Shea describes the wine bar’s food as “Australian with an Italian influence”. The brunch menu is an even more free-flowing mix of food cultures.

O’Shea says the recent opening of venues such as The Hook and Vermuteria was part of the lure to the area. “We love it because of the great mixed demographics, the beautiful residential down in Potts Point the people who come here on weekends, and a vibrant LGBTQ community.”

The market has been a little tougher down the hill at Rushcutters Bay, with hatted Italian restaurant Marta entering voluntary administration. Owner Flavio Carnevale, who has operated from the site for 12 years, cites the effect of interest rates on consumer spending and higher produce and labour costs. Trade remains business as usual at Marta, with Carnevale confident he can “trade it out”.