Everton Park will be the location for a sprawling Mediterranean venue. Expect an Amalfi-inspired design and courtyard dining for 250 guests.
Boonah, Melbourne and now Everton Park. If nothing else, Ghanem Group has gotten comfortable operating outside its comfort zone these past six months.
Until May, the furthest the Ghanems had strayed from the CBD and inner suburbs was Hamilton, with Byblos, the restaurant that started the group. Ever since, it’s been about the CBD and Fortitude Valley, with venues such as Donna Chang’s, Blackbird, Iris and Boom Boom Room, among others.
The purchase and refurbishment of the Commercial Hotel made sense for the Ghanems, who own a farm nearby. And the opening of a Melbourne instalment of Blackbird perhaps said more about the Brisbane food scene’s capacity to now take on other state capitals – it was still a Blackbird, in the inner city.
Everton Park, though, feels more strategic, perhaps – a new concept, fine-tuned for the Brisbane suburbs.
Towards the middle of next year, the Ghanems will open Alfi, a sprawling Mediterranean-influenced 350-seat eatery and bar in the Everton Plaza precinct.
“I think we do have the confidence now to tackle a project like this that we maybe didn’t have six or seven years ago,” Ghanem Group director Adonis Ghanem says. “We’ve evolved quite a bit, particularly since COVID. We have the skills, the knowledge base now, that we may not have had 10 years ago.
“For us, it was just about feeling the site. We’re not often looking for sites but we’re offered sites, and we reject a lot more than we take on.
“With this, we saw it, we liked the feel of it, the scale of it. If you go to Everton Plaza on any given night, there’s quite a bit of buzz there. We were taken aback by how many people were there on a regular night.”
Alfi will be on the ground level of a newly developed food and beverage district within the retail and dining precinct. Ghanem Group says to expect a light-filled venue with a large, open kitchen, and a lengthy U-shaped bar that flows out to a capacious 200-seat courtyard lined with greenery.
Ghanem Group is billing Alfi’s cuisine as broadly Mediterranean but with a cornerstone in coastal Italian, and the design is intended to reflect the Amalfi Coast. There will be a soft, neutral palette of light timber, Italian marble and pastel upholstery, along with curved ceiling features and dining booths fitted with heavy curtains.
Outside will drive home the theme with patio dining and an arbour.
Long-time Ghanem Group executive chef Jake Nicolson has begun writing a menu that will sweep from the Italian peninsula to take in influences from the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
“Jake’s really excited about this as well,” Ghanem said. “It’s another cuisine for him to tackle. When you think Italian, you think pizza and pasta, which he’s very familiar with, of course.
“But obviously it’s a lot more than that and we’re really excited to broaden that scope a little bit and show diners what else can be done with the cuisine, and with more of that wider Mediterranean influence as well.”
Ghanem Group restaurants, no matter what end of the market, have always been approachable. Adonis Ghanem says Alfi will be particularly so.
But, he said, it’s also about addressing a demand for quality venues outside the CBD.
“Brisbane has for a very long time been very central when it came to dining, just as we’ve been. But as that population has grown, it’s gotten to the stage where there’s enough density to support these little pockets beyond the city and inner suburbs.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for us because the precinct already has a name for itself with some really good operators … We’re excited to come in and give our take on a large format venue. All the other operators there are quite small, and we’ll complement them by going in with this scale.”
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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.
