Chef Adam Liston leaves The Commoner after fire

A fire in the kitchens of Fitzroy (Melbourne) restaurant The Commoner a month ago has burned more than a few fixtures and fittings.

Newly installed head chef Adam Liston has taken the lay-off as a bad omen and resigned. It's understood the restaurant's owners plan a more hands-on approach to the food in future but, predictably, rebuilding is taking far longer than anticipated. Liston isn't sitting on his hands. He and former Brix head chef Joel Alderton plan a series of "industry-focused" food events under the branding of Borrowed Spaces using the premises of Richmond wine bar Swan Street Social (above Noir restaurant) across the next month. Other chefs, such as Victor Liong - soon to open Lee Ho Fook in Collingwood - will be involved. Liston is looking for premises to do his own restaurant, which he reckons will also be branded Borrowed Spaces.

Chef Adam Liston has taken the fire at The Commoners as a bad omen.

ADELAIDE: In South Australia, we hear Treasury Wine Estates - Penfolds, specifically - is having trouble finding someone to take the helm at Magill Estate, where a small fortune has been spent upgrading the restaurant and kitchen in anticipation of re-opening the "Grange" of restaurants. It's a pub with no beer since incumbent Jock Zonfrillo parted ways with the organisation earlier this year. Apparently head office wants an Adelaide chef in the gig and word is that while it has been flooded with applications, it also has approached just about every likely candidate, including a few past head chefs. Scot expat Zonfrillo is looking for premises in Adelaide to get his own ball rolling. We understand the old Chesser Street Cellars site is one he is interested in.

NATIONAL: Probably Australia's most highly qualified female sommelier, Sophie Otton has quit her gig with Neil Perry. Otton's official title was wine director for the Rockpool Bar & Grill trio; she plans to work as "an independent consultant, educator, writer and speaker".

Rockpool sommelier Sophie Otton has left to do some freelance work.

MELBOURNE: Crown Melbourne has gone back down the Michelin credential route to recruit a new executive chef for Silks, its premier Cantonese restaurant. Tsang Chiu King has been appointed to the role from Hong Kong's Langham Place Hotel where he heads its premium Cantonese Ming Court. He fills a vacancy created last year when Peter Chan, who came from Wynn Macau's Wing Lei restaurant but stayed just long enough to steam his first batch of dim sum before heading back to Hong Kong. Hopefully Tsang will last longer; he brings with him for company not one but three fellow Langham men: his sous, dim sum and wok chefs.

PERTH: Hospitality entrepreneur Clint Nolan is set to expand his local holdings, which include Harvest and La Cholita (restaurants) and the wine bar Who's Your Mamma. Nolan has leased space in Roe Street, Northbridge, where work has begun to sink the railway lines and effectively bridge the space between the central business district and the inner suburb, where he plans two venues. One is a Latin American grill (working title Pleased to Meat You); the other, in the same premises, is a "Prohibition-style" (read Boardwalk Empire glam) bar with the working title Alabama Song. Former Harvest head chef Duvaldi Marneweck will come back to run the new gig. There's only one hurdle. "It might not go ahead," says Nolan. "I've had a licence application in since December and I need that to give it the green light." He says a two to three-month turnaround from the granting of a licence within the month would see the new venues open in late spring.

Source: The Australian, 11 June 2013