Bennelong restaurant at the Opera House to go to Quay’s Gilmore and Fink

Peter Gilmore and John Fink with their new restaurant site in the background.

IN an apparent about-turn on its plan to democratise dining at Australia’s most famous building, the Sydney Opera House Trust has given the Bennelong site to the people from Quay restaurant.

The Fink Group, with Australia’s most celebrated chef, Peter Gilmore, will take over the site vacated by French chef Guillaume Brahimi last year. This morning’s announcement ended a two-stage tender process that began in July.

The new Bennelong Restaurant will include a signature Gilmore dining room and a less formal restaurant bar on the upper level.

The Fink Group is behind several of Sydney’s best known chef-driven restaurants including Quay, The Bridge Room and Otto; another, Fire Door, will open early next year.

The trust’s plans for a restaurant tenancy were thrown into disarray earlier this year when the Melbourne-based Stokehouse group was forced to abandon its plan to open at Bennelong following a fire that destroyed its iconic St Kilda mothership.

The Fink Group says it will commence a multi-million dollar refurbishment of Bennelong mid-January. The new restaurant, on which Gilmore is expected to concentrate, will open in June 2015.

The Opera House has forgone considerable rental income since Mr Brahimi left the building. His restaurant is understood to have paid around $500,000 a year rent. It is believed the Stokehouse deal was anticipated to return more than $1 million ayear in base rent and turnover-indexed rental.

In a statement this morning, Opera House chairman John Symond said: “We wanted an operator that could deliver a dining experience to match the inspiring setting and this is what we have found.”

Gilmore, one of Australia’s most internationally renowned chefs, is in Hobart today as part of Tourism Australia’s massive Invite the World to Dinner campaign bringing influential world foodies to Australia to show them our food and wine assets.

A gala dinner at Hobart’s MONA tonight will showcase the talents of Gilmore, Neil Perry and Melbourne chef Ben Shewry before a who’s who of international and local media and chefs and other so-called “influencers” including the actor Gwyneth Paltrow and the chef Heston Blumenthal.

Source:  The Australian - 14th November 2014