Bao Brothers fans were shocked when owners Nathan Martin and Dave Griffin announced earlier this month that were closing their popular eatery at 701 Hunter Street, Newcastle West.
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There is no need for concern. It's only temporary.
And Bao Brothers After Dark is opening upstairs at the same location on Wednesday, September 25.
The previous downstairs eatery will return in an improved but still recognisable form at a new site later this year, while a "grab and go" canteen might open for lunch downstairs at 701 Hunter Street.
Weekender can't share too much at this stage, however there are exciting times ahead for Martin and Griffin, who are brothers-in-law as well as business partners.
They started Bao Brothers in 2015 as a humble market stall, expanded the business to a portable food truck, took over Reserve's kitchen for a time and then, in 2017, opened a restaurant serving authentic Taiwanese street food with a twist. It was an immediate hit and its funky decor and vibe raised the bar for inner-city eateries.
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"Are we busy? That's an understatement," says Martin, laughing. "We like to keep things fresh, keep updating. It's fun, isn't it? I have to remind myself of that sometimes."
But first, Bao Brothers After Dark.
"It's basically a restaurant version of what we've been doing. A grown-up version," Griffin explains.
"We always had a plan to use the upstairs space but when we signed a deal for this other site, we thought we'd close downstairs and focus on a restaurant upstairs. It's contemporary Asian, not really fixed to any one cuisine. We will draw influences from whatever we find to be delicious, any anything we can make something delicious out of."
The menu will be divided into snacks, which can be bought individually; a large selection of small dishes; four share dishes and two "large format" dishes for two to four people.
"One of our signature dishes will be a Mongolian glazed lamb shoulder which will come with a steamed bao, lettuce cups and some condiments - and we will let people build it at the table," Griffin says.
Snacks on the menu include crumbed mussel with XO mayo ($6); cashew nut dip with witlof and black bean tabouleh ($6); prawn toast with cocktail sauce, pickled cucumber and iceberg ($8); and shitake mushroom and gruyere cheese doughnut ($8). Small meals? Think massaman beef tartare with coconut cream, black garlic, finger lime and French fries ($21); hay smoked corn with kimchi butter, ricotta salata and typhoon crumb ($10); and king oyster mushroom omelette with goat's curd, shitake broth and garlic chive ($18).
Larger meals include egg noodles with clams, XO sauce and fried mantou bun ($26); and charred eggplant with garlic sauce, peanut crumble and pickled ginger sumac salad ($24); while the Mongolian lamb shoulder with steamed bao, lettuce cups, spicy snake beans and sesame cucumber pickle ($70) and the Little Hill Farm free range chicken with burnt shallot, steamed greens and ginger jus ($65) will feed two to four people.
We'll keep the dessert menu a secret.
Martin and Griffin wanted to bring something fresh and new to Newcastle; something that hadn't been done before.
"Something that was still quite approachable rather fine dining, and somewhere you'd go once a month or with a group of people," Griffin continues.
"Patrick Haddock has put together a really clever wine list that matches the Asian food that we're doing and we've got a really successful mixologist who specialises in Asian-driven cocktails."
For the first month of trading, Bao Brothers After Dark will be open Wednesday to Saturday for dinner only. After that, it will be open Monday through to Saturday.
"There aren't many places open in Newcastle on a Monday night - that's one reason - and also hospitality workers tend to have the day off on Monday and they like to eat out," Griffin says.
James Mulholland is head chef and the trio go way back, having attended school together in Singleton. He was head chef at Luke Mangan's Glass Brasserie restaurant in Sydney, and executive chef at Sydney Airport's Virgin Lounge for many years.
"We've kept in contact for about 10 years and James said he was keen to move back to Newcastle," Griffin says.
"We have a very similar style when it comes to food - very contemporary Asian - and we both draw a lot of influences from Japanese and south-east Asian flavours. He has done a lot of cool pop-ups and collaborations with Luke both here and in LA and he worked with the Kardashians when they were in Australia.
"We've got plans to do collaborative dinners with different chefs, including chefs from interstate and even overseas. Not so much wine dinners, but dinners where we merge what they're doing with what we're doing."
Their plans don't end there. As mentioned earlier, there is talk of a canteen of sorts opening in the downstairs space of the Newcastle West building they lease, one that caters for time-poor inner-city workers who prefer to "grab and go" lunch on the run. But it remains just that - talk.
Also, Bao Brothers now has a production site at Tighes Hill from which they run the events side of the business. Last week, they used it for a new weekly event called Food Truck Fridays that catered for 120 people.
It's held at an old church at 48 George Street and, in addition to food, features music and entertainment.
