The three-in-one hospitality hub is set to open at the former home of the Grand Pacific Blue Room.
When London restaurateurs Zoë and Layo Paskin open three venues in Paddington this September, they’ll tackle the Sydney market with some local talent in their corner. Sydney chef Mitch Orr has joined 25hours Hotel The Olympia as culinary director, responsible for steering the Paskins’ restaurant, bar and coffee house in the new hotel.
Australia hasn’t always proved fruitful turf for UK hospitality imports. For every Clare Smyth success story with Oncore at Crown Sydney, there is Gordon Ramsay’s closure of Maze in Melbourne, and Jason Atherton’s retreat at Kensington Street Social, in Sydney’s Chippendale.
Orr, who ran his own restaurant, Acme, before launching Kiln restaurant at Ace Hotel Sydney, knows it can be tough for imported talent. “Sydney doesn’t really give a f— unless you’ve built your name [here],” is the chef’s candid appraisal. But he believes the Paskins have the right ingredients to succeed. “There isn’t that arrogance; they want to create amazing spaces people want to go to.”
Orr points to The Palomar restaurant – which is being transplanted in Sydney, along with its award-winning cocktail and wine bar sibling, The Mulwray, and coffee and bakery concept Jacob the Angel – as an example of the Paskins’ Sydney approach. The Palomar has held an esteemed Michelin Bib Gourmand award since it opened in Soho in 2014; Orr said the Paskins are determined to make it a “Sydney restaurant”.
Speaking by phone from London, sister and brother duo Zoë and Layo Paskin say Palomar’s Sydney branch will be “informed” by the London original but inspired by the city it resides in. Five or six signature dishes will make the trip, with plenty of wiggle room for the local team to create its own imprint.
The Paskins will come to Australia to bed the venues down, and bring some of their team with them, but they’ll appoint a local head chef at The Palomar to work with Orr and the hotel.
Just who are the Paskins? Their hospitality story began in 1995 with a London nightclub, The End. Layo Paskin is a DJ who found time to release four albums and tour the globe before they decided to sell the nightclub and focus their energy on restaurants.
Eyeing a gap in the London market for a restaurant influenced by southern Europe and the cuisines of the Levant, the 2014 launch of The Palomar proved a quick success, named by Tatler magazine as restaurant of the year. They’ve since added the Michelin-starred Evelyn’s Table to a stable that also includes London hotspot The Barbary.
What’s the secret to their success? Layo Paskin refers to restaurants as organisms, and the “unseens” beyond food and service such as the volume of music and lighting. “If you’ve done it well, people don’t know why they feel like they do, it’s magic,” he said.
Asked how they juggle a sister-brother relationship in the cut and thrust of business, Layo said: “I’ll let the better sibling start”.
“We can occasionally get a bit hot-headed,” Zoë Paskin said. But she explained that they know their individual strengths and defer to them. Zoë is a deep thinker about the hospitality experience. She observes seemingly ordinary details such as eating at the bar as a more democratic union between guest and staff.
The opportunity to branch out to restaurants in hotels came during the pandemic, when Studio Paskin was approached to curate restaurants at Gleneagles Townhouse in Edinburgh, and they’ve recently done a project in Barcelona. There are plenty of opportunities around the world, but their ears pricked when 25hours Hotel owner Ennismore approached them about a collaboration in Sydney.
Both siblings have chalked up plenty of eating hours in Sydney, and are fans of the local restaurant scene. Layo spent lots of time in the city early in his career, touring as a DJ. Plus his wife, Gabriella, was raised in Sydney. “She [Gabriella] was very excited. When she realised it [the hotel] was the Grand Pacific Blue Room site, it doubled,” Layo said.
Before its 1990s Blue Room era, the building was better known as the Olympia Theatre, with a history stretching back to 1911. The Paskins’ three venues will all front Oxford Street, on the ground level of the hotel.
While The Palomar might transplant dishes such as lamb belly with anchovy or its ice-cream sandwiches filled with baklava and pistachio, The Mulwray will lean on classic cocktails and a local-leaning wine list.
The restoration and redevelopment of the hotel’s heritage-listed Oxford Street site has been beset by delays. When the 109-room hotel opens in September it will also include a rooftop bar, Monica, operated by the hotel, with West Hollywood and Santa Monica vibes and sweeping Sydney views.
“You can see a good chunk of the Harbour Bridge and the tip of an Opera House sail,” MitchOrr said.
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