Rick Stein to open restaurant in Port Stephens

Prominent British chef and TV presenter Rick Stein is expanding his Australian presence.

He is now looking to open a venue in Port Stephens, the coastal region north of Newcastle.

The plan is to create something based on his unique hotel concept Bannisters.

Bannisters Port Stephens will be an 80 room hotel.

It will open in the former Salamander Shores beachfront site at Soldiers Point in late 2018.

The beachfront site at Soldiers Point will be designed by architect Tony Freeman with the help of interior designer Romy Alwill.

It will include luxury suites and a penthouse.

Fifty of those rooms will offer bay views over the Karuah River, as well as vistas of forest and bushland.

In addition to that, the venue will have a pub for casual dining and pizzas. For those wanting something more up-market, there will be a signature restaurant by Stein which will see Stein working with with head chef Mitchell Turner.

The restaurant’s menu will include local king prawns, Yellowfin bream, flathead, calamari, school whiting and oysters.

Stein said the key here is to make the most of the area being one of Australia’s top sea food locations.

“The abundance of top-quality seafood is a massive attraction,” Stein said in his official statement.

"I will be working closely with head chef, Mitchell Turner designing a menu featuring local king prawns, yellowfin bream, flathead, calamari and school whiting, not to mention the fabulous oysters."

The area’s other big drawcard, he says, is the “proximity to the Hunter Valley’s wineries.”

Stein is enthused about the area.

"It’s another beautiful stretch of New South Wales coastline, like Mollymook, and we can’t wait to be working again with general manager Peter Bacon and commercial director, Alice O’Hara,’’ he said.

“When we saw the landscape from the lookout above Nelson Bay we were filled with a sense of excitement to see an almost continuous vista of bays, headlands, peninsula and the open sea beyond."