Brooks of Melbourne closes with liabilities of $1.5 million
It all ended badly for staff — and almost certainly trade suppliers, banks and the Australian Taxation Office — when Brooks of Melbourne closed on Thursday.
The restaurant was about a year into its second phase under manager Bryan Lloydand Scottish chef David Hall, a regime that followed the 2012 founding team of manager Gerald Diffey, chef Nic Poelaert and sommelier Matt Brook. Peter James Morey and Michael Charles Sharpe, directors of Peacock Downunder, which owns the CBD basement restaurant, put the company into voluntary liquidation on Thursday, appointing insolvency accountants BCR Advisory (Sydney). Preliminary estimates by BCR suggest liabilities of about $1.5 million, of which 75 per cent is owed to the directors. Several Brooks staff had job interviews lined up that afternoon.
Sydney interiors architect George Livissianis (Apollo, Billy Kwong, Cho Cho San) has landed his first major restaurant job south of the Murray. Frank Van Haandelhas commissioned Livissianis to create his unnamed downstairs venture on the St Kilda foreshore. Upstairs, Stokehouse has again been handed to architect Pascale Gomes-McNabb; plans seen by First Bite look exciting. Van Haandel scrapped the idea of a second, junior Stokehouse beneath it. “I wanted a different designer so that there was no overflow from upstairs to down,” the restaurateur says.
After more than three years out of fine dining and restaurants, Canadian expat chefTodd Cheavins has returned to the nest at Perth’s Richardson Hotel at its dining room, Opus. Cheavins was the hotel’s first executive chef when it opened in 2006 and stayed in the gig almost six years before heading to Sodexo, the giant on-site services company.
A joint venture between two Melburnians and a Vietnamese restaurant company could lift the bar for Viet cuisine in the southern capital. House of Hoi An opens in Windsor next week. Driving the food is chef and restaurateur Trinh Diem Vy, described as the face behind the Taste Vietnam Group, which includes three restaurants, a cooking school and Maison Vy, a soon-to-open hotel in its home city of Hoi An. Vy is a third-generation chef and something of a food legend in her home town, we hear. The Melbourne restaurant, managed by husband-and-wife teamMichael Fitzpatrick and Hien Van Thai, involved the complete refit of a derelict cafe.
Vast restaurant and catering group Trippas White has taken over Sydney Opera House’s Colonnade Cafe and Western Foyer Theatre Bars from former Australian Wallabies captain George Gregan’s Gregan Group. Lauren Murdoch — best known for her time at Merivale Group running Lotus and Felix — is the new chef. It’s a welcome return. The venue will be refreshed next year.
With a new wine bar due to open in Melbourne’s CBD next month, to be followed by a dining room, the Town Mouse has put on a new head chef in its home base of Carlton. Jasper Avent steps into his first senior role from a background of many years at Lake House and, more recently, Albert Street and Estelle bistro. He replacesGeorge Tomlin, who has left to travel and work in Europe. Partner and exec chefDave Verheul will concentrate on the city project.
Only in America … After a series of highly publicised pop-ups on both sides of the country, young — as in 16 years old — chef Flynn McGarry plans to open a “chef counter” in New York called Eureka NYC. His latest project, a three-night-a-week pop-up in the West Village, will serve a 14-course tasting menu for just 12 guests with tickets priced at $US160 ($230) — add $US80 for wine pairing. Reports Fine Dining Lovers: “This is a young man on a mission and a chef who at just 16 already lays claim to featuring on the cover of The New York Times Magazine — a claim that most chefs will never get to make, no matter how long they cook for.”
Globetrotting Kiwi chef Phillip Davenport has finally opened his Rosebery (Sydney) eatery Mentmore & Morley, opposite pizza haven Da Mario. It will be an aspirational cafe focusing on healthy breakfasts and salads, Davenport tells us, with a medium-term plan to move into dinners. Davenport spent seven years in Bali as executive chef of Seminyak institution Ku De Ta.
Source: The Australian, John Lethlean, 8th September 2015
Originally published as: Brooks of Melbourne closes with liabilities of $1.5 million
