New Bennelong site winners stoked

Confirmation Melbourne venue The Stokehouse has won the tender for the Sydney Opera House’s Bennelong site won’t be a surprise for Good Food readers, with word of its leading-contender status bobbing around since early August.

It will certainly have big clogs to fill when Guillaume Brahimi departs at the end of the year, despite executive chef Anthony Musarra’s Sydney connections.

While the people’s house refused to discuss rent and who will pay for the refit, talk suggests more than $3 million will be spent on a redesign.

Bennelong by Stokehouse’s owner, Frank van Haandel, denied the annual rent could push as high as $1.5 million. Good Food believes Brahimi was paying $500,000 a year.