Circa chefs take their leave

Jake Nicolson has resigned as head chef at Circa in St Kilda's Prince of Wales Hotel owned by the Melbourne Pub Group, and will move to Brisbane to take up the role of executive chef at the Ghanem Group.

The Brisbane-based company owns 5th Element at South Bank, Byblos at Portside and is opening another venue, Blackbird, at the Riverside Centre. Nicolson (pictured, on left) says he will finish at Circa in September, have a three-week break, then start working on Blackbird. He is the second chef to resign from the group in weeks - last week it was executive chef Paul Wilson (right) who announced his decision to move on.