Commercial Kitchens

Melbourne University students should be on guard when they head across the road to the rejigged Prince Alfred Hotel because the new owners intend to keep you there long after your next lecture has started.

“We really wanted to create a place that’s somewhere you want to lose hours in,” says Daragh Kan, founder of the 100 Burgers Group (Welcome to Thorbury, Belle’s Hot Chicken and Mr Burger), which took over the Carlton institution late last year. “If you’re a uni student who rocks up for a quick bite, [you’ll get] so comfortable you’ll skip the next class. Before you know it, uni’s over.”

Another ramen bar has opened in Perth. Ramen King Shigemi Kawahara’s global ramen brand has arrived at Kings Square offering ramen and more.

Kawahara opened his first store in 1985 in Japan’s ramen capital, Hakata, in the Fukuoka prefecture.

In 1990 he entered the Hall of Fame for winning Japanese ramen TV competition, Ramen Master Chef Championships three consecutive times.

Deliveroo has launched Deliveroo Editions, a delivery-only kitchen concept located in Melbourne.

What do you get when you cross an ex-nightclub owner turned designer with a French-trained chef with a penchant for southern-style fried food? Anything other than ordinary, that’s for sure.

Forget pared-back Scandinavian chic, subway tiles, polished concrete floors or any other colour-by-number restaurant design cues; Natural History Bar & Grill is the maximalist brainchild of Mike Delaney (Honky Tonks, Sorry Grandma) and ultimate insider chef Morgan McGlone (Belle’s Hot Chicken) and it’s here to shake up your expectations of restaurant dining in Melbourne

Australia’s well-known passions of sports, beer and mateship have combined to deliver the country’s first crowdfunded pub.

More than 330 investors – some offering as little as $50, some as much as $10,000 – have committed a combined $1.2 million to become part-owners of the latest sports-themed pub developed by US-style chain, The Sporting Globe.

Although uprooting a restaurant and taking it to another city isn’t an easy proposition, chef Shayne McCallum believes the time is ripe to bring his video game-themed burger joint, 8bit, to Sydney. “I would hate for Sydney to think, ‘bloody Melbourne guys trying to take over the scene’, but burger culture is really healthy here; …. so it’s a good time to come,” he says.