Automata chef to play key role with fast growing Public group
Sydney’s fastest-growing hospitality group, Public has welcomed former Automata chef Clayton Wells to its stable as creative culinary director.
Wells will play a key role in developing the food and beverage offerings at more than 20 venues under the Public brand, including The Lady Hampshire in Camperdown and the Oxford House in Paddington.
Public is also set to open a boutique hotel with about 50 rooms in the former Noah’s Backpackers site at Bondi Beach which it purchased for $689 million in 2022.
The Group has been rapidly expanding over the past three years, acquiring 16 properties.
Well told Good Food the Bondi property will become a major upmarket hotel.
“It’s going to be a major focus of mine,” Wells said.
I can’t tell you too much yet but it’s going to be a really cool food and beverage-led hotel with lots of different spaces throughout.”
The unnamed venue will feature a restaurant, bar and rooftop space.
Wells will also play a major role with art deco venue The Kurrajong in Erskineville. The venue will be renovated and converted into a boutique hotel and restaurant.
“It’s a beautiful building, right across from the park, and [we’re developing it into] something quite stunning,” Wells told Good Food.
The gig with Jon Adgemis’ Public is the wchallenge Wells has been looking for since he announced the closure of the two-hatted Automata in July last year.
“After I closed Automata, I really wanted to give myself a few months to unpack the last 16 years of fine dining and make a focused choice on what direction I wanted to move in,” he said.
“I realised I’ve always been really excited about this part of the process … Not to say I don’t enjoy cooking, but I really enjoy that art [of conceptualising a restaurant].”
Wells will continue with his restaurant at the Art Gallery of NSW, MOD. Dining by Clayton Wells.
Jonathan Jackson, 31st May 2023
