Port Office Hotel gets a new lease of life
The Port Office Hotel in Brisbane has been completely renovated and has reopened in the CBD.
Owners Nick and Meagan Gregorski have rejuvenated it, giving it a new lease of life.
They’re old hands at it too, it’s the second time they have given a pub a complete refurb having taken over the once-neglected Alliance Hotel in 2012 and turning it into an award-winning gastropub.
We know the challenges,” Nick told broadsheet.com.au.
“The great [heritage] features are what make these pubs great. Too many times you go into what should be a heritage pub and it’s covered in marble and plastic.”
And it’s been a total makeover. Following the renovations that started in January, the place is now very different to how it looked when they acquired it.
The first to go was the marble top from its corner bar. That’s been replaced by a wooden bench separating punters and staff.
They also got rid of the Fix Restaurant.
That’s been replaced with the 100-seat Port Office Dining Room. It will have French bistro chairs, black banquette seating and quality serving-ware.
It’s a chic, European-inspired bistro offering a gastropub menu which will be special with a rotisserie imported from France to cook chickens, ducks and suckling pig. That’s in addition to spanner crab soufflé, spicy grass-fed steak tartare and an Espresso Martini bombe, pan-roasted lamb sweetbreads and chicken hearts.
The function space and sticky dance floor have been transformed.
It’s been replaced by the Colonial Bar, a plantation-style cocktail joint.
“The Port Office is such a beautiful pub. It has a really nice feel about it and we’ve just added to that,” Nick said “What we try to do is make a bar that’s timeless.”
In terms of drinks, the pubs 42 taps will offer craft beer. There will be a wine specialist curating the list and servicing the bistro and there will be a six page list of cocktails.
by Leon Gettler, May 8th 2017
