Chin Chin restaurant opens in Sydney
Melbourne restaurateur Chris Lucas is bringing a bit of Melbourne to Sydney with Chin Chin, his acclaimed Flinders Lane eatery.
Over the coming week, Chin Chin will open its doors on the ground floor of the Griffiths Teas building located in the tight triangular block in Sydney's inner-city suburb of Surry Hills.
The heritage-listed, red-brick tea rooms were opened 1915 as the NSW warehouse of the Melbourne-based import company, established in 1879. But for almost 30 years, it was standing unused.
And then in 2014, it was acquired by developer Michael Grant of Cornerstone Property who then brought in architect Alex Popov of PopovBass to bring the building back to life.
Cornerstone paid $22 million to acquire the landmark building from the Wakil family business.
The tea rooms were added to a Sydney heritage portfolio that includes another Surry Hills warehouse at 1 Lacey Street. That was in addition to the neighbouring New York and Brooklyn Tobacco Company and Demco Machinery Company buildings on Cleveland Street in Redfern.
Inside, the timber sash windows allow the sunlight to shine on the floor which has been recycled from the original floorboards. Chairs, which are classic bentwood by Thonet updated with a pale pink wash, stand next to the round tables.
Lucas said he took a shine to the building when the developer took him on a tour of it even before he bought it.
"I'd always harboured vague ambitions to open up in Sydney, but it was the building that really provided the incentive," Lucas told the Australian Financial Review.
“He was showing us around a few buildings in the area, and we drove past Griffiths Teas, which at that stage was not for sale, and I said, 'Mate, that one there's an amazing building'.”
The design, he says, captures everything.
"Of course we're giving it a 21st century overhaul, but we've taken great pains to preserve the original elegance of the building," Lucas told the AFR. "If it's been here for over a hundred years, one assumes it's done something right."
“We were absolutely focused on creating an interior that was relaxed and stylish but not on trend," he says. "The specificity of the building led us to appropriate design decisions. It was more about the process of making the place, rather than responding to a pre-determined brief."
by Leon Gettler, September 27th 2017
