Merivale, Noma and D’Maurizio spearhead Sydney’s firing restaurant scene
Major events? Forget the Grand Prix, the Melbourne Cup or the tennis. The biggest major event in Australia right now is restaurants, and the winner is … sorry Melbourne, but it’s Sydney.
The Harbour City is booming with new and under-construction restaurant activity at an unprecedented level, fired by the growth of new precincts and property developments boasting dining out as the top-line attraction.
From Scandi pop-up Noma at Barangaroo to the restaurant takeover of Martin Place, the success of urban renewal projects such as Kensington Street in Chippendale and the most ambitious expansion yet for Justin Hemmes’s Merivale group, Sydney is striving to position itself as a world leader in food and wine (and scrambling to boost its rankings in the influential World’s 50 Best Restaurants List).
“Tickets” for Rene Redzepi’s Noma — yes, dining at one of the world’s best restaurants is a bona-fide cultural event, and you book and pay in advance accordingly — sold out in five minutes this month, and there are 11,000 hopefuls on the waiting list, at a minimum $970 a double, food only; this for your chance to experience a Copenhagen restaurant relocating to the Sydney Harbour foreshore for a mere 10 weeks from Australia Day next year.
While in the more permanent end of town, new big-name eateries and bars are opening or are slated to open in the next few months at a dizzying pace.
Most of the action is centred on Martin Place and Pitt and Bligh streets: there’s 1821, a grand modern Greek restaurant in the former Vault Hotel site, with chef David Tsirekas; MoVida Next Door, a spin-off of Frank Camorra’s bi-city brand; D’Maurizio, an osteria from Maurice Terzini (Icebergs, D’Orazio); Bistro Guillaume, from chef Guillaume Brahimi; Mercado, a rotisserie-fired restaurant headed by ex-Nomad chef Nathan Sasi and backed by China Lane’s Steve Anastasiou, who’s also opening an Italian eatery/coffee roastery/panini bar nearby; the Europhile Restaurant Hubert, from the Swillhouse Group; a European wine bar from Merivale in King Street; Indian restaurant Indu, in George Street; Sake Junior, a new sub-brand of Urban Purveyor Group’s Japanese restaurant brand, also in George Street, plus a new Italian brand, Stella, from the same group; a no-name-yet ambitious venture in the 1930s heritage Sydney Water Board building in Pitt Street, with Chinese backers and ex-Rockpool Bar & Grill chef Ryan Hong; Michelin-starred dumpling joint Tim Ho Wan, also in Pitt Street; and the newie from Mike McEnearney (Kitchen by Mike) in Bent Street. Oh, and not forgetting another branch of Neil Perry’s Burger Project and the hot rumours that expat David Thompson will open a CBD branch of his Singapore street-food sensation, Long Chim. Have we missed anything?
A cocktail of factors is behind the frenzy. Led by well-liked Premier Mike Baird, the NSW economy is thriving, property development is booming at levels not seen since the lead-up to the 2000 Olympics, and consumer confidence is higher than in any other state. And with the lion’s share of overseas visitors, NSW — and Sydney in particular — is best-placed to reap the rewards of Restaurant Australia, Tourism Australia’s super-successful $10 million campaign launched last year aimed at riding the wave of global food travel and focusing the world’s gaze on our premium dining scene.
“We had a record 3.3 million international visitors in the year to June, over a million more than our nearest competitor [Victoria],” says NSW Trade, Tourism and Major Events Minister Stuart Ayres. “Of those, over 90 per cent listed dining out as their favourite activity.
“What we’re seeing now is a maturing of the tourism market. It used to be just box-ticking — Opera House, bridge — now our visitors are immersing themselves in the food and wine scene,” says Ayres. “Sydney is shaking off its showgirl status.”
Masterchef’s Matt Preston sees a seismic shift in the Sydney restaurant scene. “The city is exploding with well-priced places now,” he says. “That mid-price range has really taken off in the past 12 months, and that’s the area that Melbourne has always been so strong in. I think there’s also been a real changing of the guard in terms of hot restaurants in Sydney. All the focus used to be on the high-end, now everyone’s talking about hip chefs like Dan Hong (executive chef of several Merivale restaurants), Mitch Orr (Acme) and Anna Polyviou (pastry chef, Shangri-La Hotel).”
Merivale chief executive Justin Hemmes is in the news for more than the arrival of his first child. In the next four months, his restaurant-bar-hotel group is opening another seven venues across the city to augment his existing dozen Sydney restaurants (a whisky bar, J&M in the Angel Hotel, CBD, opened earlier this month). Three of them will be in Oxford Street, led by next week’s launch of the Paddington, a modern pub headed up by one of Sydney’s hottest chefs, Ben Greeno (ex-Momofuku Seiobo). Then there’s the huge redevelopment of the Newport Arms, the foray into the inner west with the Queen Victoria Hotel in Enmore … and more. Sure, Justin, business is good, but seven?
“Sydney is in the best place right now; it’s never been so exciting,” says Hemmes. “So many talented chefs are turning their hand to more accessible food, more affordable food, it means there’s a lot more [chef] talent in the pool for a business like ours.”
This shift to the middle encourages people to dine out more often. “The industry has changed so much,” he says. “Restaurant trade used to be concentrated on the weekends, but not any more. We’re now a seven-day, seven-night operation.”
Hemmes is unfazed by suggestions from some that the scale of the industry’s growth is unsustainable. “This industry is semi recession-proof,” he says. “My parents were in the rag trade at a time when people spent a lot of their disposable income on clothes … Now, people spend that money on dining out; it’s more experiential. There’s a huge shift in the way consumers spend their money.”
The Cutaway, a flexible cultural/dining precinct at Barangaroo Reserve in Sydney.
One who sees things differently is Restaurant & Catering Australia chief executive John Hart, who cites Australian Bureau of Statistics figures on NSW restaurant turnover of 3.6 per cent for the year to September, a big drop from the previous year’s 25.6 per cent. “It’s all very well to point to an increase in international visitation, but most businesses don’t survive entirely on international trade,” he says. “It may be that Barangaroo will be a destination for suburban diners, at the expense of their local restaurants. My concern is that it will get to a stage where there’s just not enough business to go around. And where are all the staff for these new restaurants coming from? We already have a critical staff shortage across the industry.”
Food tourists don’t all arrive in Sydney with a passport, however. Peter Stratton, who manages a private club in Melbourne, is typical of the interstate food lover who rates Sydney’s dining scene as the best in the land.
“I’ve had three trips there in the past few months and I would certainly say that Sydney restaurants are far more exciting than Melbourne,” Stratton says. “ACME, Bennelong, Mr Wong, Bentley, 10 William Street, Ester, LuMi … And great bars as well.
“I really think if we didn’t have [restaurateurs] Andrew McConnell and Chris Lucas [in Melbourne], we’d have very few options.”
But you don’t have to take it from him. British super-chef Gordon Ramsay is quoted in the current issue of Delicious magazine as looking at opening a restaurant in Australia — but not, this time, in Melbourne.
“In Sydney,” says Ramsay. “Less arrogance, and they seem to have a little more fun there.”
Necia Wilden visited Sydney with the assistance of Destination NSW.
Source: The Australian, Neicia Wilden, 21st November 2015
Originally published as: Merivale, Noma and D’Maurizio spearhead Sydney’s firing restaurant scene
