Sepia chef Martin Benn finds next kitchen at QIC's Collins Street, Melbourne development
The now Melbourne-based chef Martin Benn and partner, Sepia’s front of house manager Vicki Wild (right), have now been revealed as set to open an upmarket eatery at QIC's Collins Street development.
The premises will be at 80 Collins Street.
The 47-storey tower on the corner of Collins and Exhibition streets will house international luxury, beauty and lifestyle brands as well as commercial offices.
The planned restaurant, spanning multiple levels and with eight-metre ceilings, will sit atop the retail precinct with outdoor terraces.
It was late last year when Property Observer reported they had secured tenants for their vacated Sydney home.
The Gladesville home had a rental asking price of $1750 a week.
The couple bought the 1900s renovated brick cottage in 2015 for $2.5 million upgrading from their Rozelle apartment which sold for $1.06 million.
Set on 685sqm, the Gladesville home has five bedrooms and a solar-heated pool.
The couple are heading south after veteran restaurateur Chris Lucas, owner of the Chin Chin chain, convinced them to come to Melbourne where they will establish a fine-dining restaurant, due to open in 2020.
Their three-hat restaurant Sepia in the Sydney CBD had been operating since 2009 until its late 2018 closure.
The most famous restaurant couple in Australia have only ever worked and lived together, excepting for one short stint in Hong Kong.
Last year Lucas, the king of Melbourne casual dining, bought a $3.4 million bolthole in Potts Point ahead of the opening of the Chin Chin restaurant on the ground floor of the Griffiths Teas Building on Wentworth Ave, Surry Hills.
At Thursday's restaurant launch, Melbourne's struggling Lord Mayor Sally Capp praised the venture saying it was a "coup" to have lured Benn and Wild from Sydney.
