Stokehouse takes a bite of Bennelong

The controversial Bennelong restaurant site - arguably Australia's most prestigious dining location, at Sydney's Opera House - will be taken over by a Melbourne-based restaurant operator.

The (Frank) Van Haandel Group  - operators of the Stokehouse restaurants and several other popular venues in Melbourne and Brisbane - has won the tender to launch an entirely new style of restaurant at the site.

The Bennelong by Stokehouse kitchen will be run by young star Richard Ousby, from the group's Brisbane restaurant. Ousby, an Electrolux Appetite for Excellence winner in 2011, last worked in Sydney at the prestigious Quay restaurant, winner of The Weekend Australian Magazine's Hottest Restaurant Awards in 2013.

SOH CEO Louise Herron (left) and trust chairman John Symond (right) with the winners of the Bennelong tender, from left: Fran and Sharon Van Haandel and chef Anthony Musarra.

Ousby told The Australian his food for Bennelong would be "light, contemporary and with a loosely Mediterranean core. Basically, the same sort of food we do at Stokehouse in Brisbane right now."

It is expected that Stokehouse executive chef Anthony Mussarra will return to his hometown of Sydney to oversee the operation.

The site was previously occupied by expat Frenchman Guillaume Brahimi, whose eponymous restaurant haD served his fine dining cuisine for the past 12 years.

Brahimi is understood to be close to signing a new restaurant lease that will absorb much of his 60-strong team at Bennelong. If so, it was still not enough to obscure the significance of today's announcement. "This is an emotional day for me," he said. "But I wish them well. You don't want anyone to fail."

	Former tenant and resident chef Guillaume Brahimi at Bennelong: "This is an emotion day for me."
	Richard Ousby will take over the kitchen at Bennelong.

The tender process was the result of the Opera House Trust declaring its desire for a more egalitarian, seven-day restaurant operation, as distinct from Brahimi's high-priced, special occasion venue.

"My vision 12 years ago for the space was for fine dining, and my vision hasn't changed," Brahimi said. "The trust's vision has changed. I don't want to fight with the trust… But people have short memories. They forget that we used to open seven days when we opened. In the end, however, you have to make it work commercially."

Although the trust did not publish the list of tenderers, it was widely speculated prior to today's announcement that Sydney’s Fink Group (operators of Quay, Otto and The Bridge Room) would win the tender with a joint venture including celebrity chef Bill Granger. Other names on the list included Maurice Terzini, of Bondi's Icebergs, and Melbourne's Shannon Bennett, of Vue de Monde.

The Van Haandel group has won a 10-year lease. Refurbishing will begin in the New Year, with a target opening date of May. The two-tier site will see casual dining on the upper level and a "more sophisticated" approach below, according the the trust.

Van Haandel has not engaged a design team yet. However, he has just been through a complete refit of his Hamer Hall (Victorian Arts Centre) restaurant Fatto (nee Trocadero) with the design team Projects of Imagination. The Hamer Hall site was fraught with heritage restrictions.

"We've learned a lot from the Hamer Hall experience, and we will need to be very mindful of heritage here in Sydney," Van Haandel told The Australian. "Nothing is finalised yet… We only have concept drawings."

He said that because walls and ceilings within the site are sacrosanct, it will be a matter of designing free-standing furniture - "like an installation" - as well as replacing the kitchen in its entirety.

According to Opera House CEO Louise Herron, three pillars drove the tender process: the need to make the dining facilities at Bennelong more accessible; the need to have them open far more often; and the need to secure a proper market rent for the site. Herron said she believed the Stokehouse pitch covered all bases.

Trust chairman John Symond told The Australian "you'll always get a bit of flak (when interstaters come in). We went into this wanting the best possible operator to serve everybody… We went into it without a bias. There’s not a building, business or institution in the land like the (Opera) House where everybody has a view."

Symond said that while Brahimi "has made a wonderful contribution…. It was too restrictive. This is about renewal."

Also see: Guillaume Brahimi exits as Opera House dining goes everyday

Source: The Australian, 8 November 2013