The star chef’s first Brisbane eatery will be influenced by the cuisine’s trade routes and backed by 140 wines plus a “Single Bottle Club” reserve list.
Shane Delia is a little frazzled after a weekend spent working at the Melbourne Grand Prix.
“I consult for the Grand Prix Corporation … so over the weekend I was running all the premium suites,” Delia says. “I woke up this morning, hit the gym and then went to work, and now I’m home, packing for Brisbane.”
Consulting for the Melbourne Grand Prix feels very Delia because Delia is a very Melbourne chef. He’s celebrated in the Victorian capital for a series of high-profile, Middle Eastern-inflected restaurants and bars such as Maha, Maha East, Maha North and Jayda, as well as his Biggie Smalls casual eatery at Melbourne Airport.
So why open a restaurant in Brisbane? Why not take on Sydney or another state capital? And why now?
“My wife and I have always had a goal to make Queensland our second residence,” he says.
“My kids are starting to get to the tail end of their schooling now. Within the next five years, we want to be living a large portion of our lives in Queensland.
“We feel good in Queensland, so Brisbane was a logical first stop for us.”
Delia’s first stop in Queensland is Layla, which he will open as a 90-seat restaurant in the Thomas Dixon Centre in West End next week; it will later expand to 140 seats with the addition of an outside terrace.
In the past decade, Brisbane has been the subject of a renewed push by southern operators to take on the city’s dining scene.
First, it was mostly from Sydney via groups such as Fink (Otto) and Barthelmess (Greca, Yoko). More recently, though, it’s Melbourne, with Trader House (Supernormal Brisbane, Bar Miette), Lune and Baker D. Chirico establishing a presence in the Queensland capital.
Delia, though, is arguably the most high-profile of the lot. He says what opened his eyes to Brisbane’s food scene was his time spearheading the Providoor meal delivery service (which is now under different ownership).
“Everywhere the Middle Eastern palate has gone … there’s just so much influence around those areas and everywhere those spices are being traded. And why does it have to go one way? It can go both ways.”
Shane Delia
“I was forced, out of necessity, to really start to explore,” he says. “I started meeting chefs and was, like, ‘This is more than I thought. There’s actual depth here.’
“And I thought, ‘There’s a great opportunity to contribute something to this landscape and be part of the amazing work that’s already happening.’ I didn’t really see it as a capitalist move.”
Layla will share Delia’s Melbourne venues’ focus on Middle Eastern flavours, but Delia and Layla head chef Simon Palmer (formerly Ecco, Gerard’s, Urbane) are taking a more global approach to the cuisine’s influence while anchoring it in local produce.
“It will have a Middle Eastern overlay so it will always feel Arabic in its approach, but it will also have more of a subcontinent flavour and influence,” Delia says. “You’ll see Sir Lankan-style sambals. It won’t just be spices cooked through the dish – you might’ve transformed it into a curry base or something that’s a bit more fluid and luxurious.”
Details about Layla have been dripped to the media strategically – the venue’s name was only announced earlier this month – and the menu is being kept under wraps until next week, but Delia says to expect dishes such as a roasted carrot hummus with seared scallops, toasted coconut and a Persian lime sambal.
“When you start to pull through the spice trade, you start to explore new flavours,” he says about the dish. “Everywhere the Middle Eastern palate has gone – into the Moorish palate or even into Ottoman cuisine – there’s just so much influence around those areas and everywhere those spices are being traded. And why does it have to go one way? It can go both ways.”
To accompany the food, Delia says to expect a 140-bottle wine list, with a “Single Bottle Club” reserve list that will present rare and precious drops brought up from the group’s Melbourne cellar.
Layla will open on March 28 at the Thomas Dixon Centre at 406 Montague Road, West End.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
