Chef Matt Kemp will reboot his kitchen career in Sydney's east, two years after pulling the pin on the Randwick restaurant fiefdom he created with Balzac and Montpellier Public House.
Kemp will front a new restaurant opening next week at the Charing Cross Hotel in Waverley. While he has moved between jobs and has several consultancy gigs, the talented chef describes the 60-seat Charing Cross restaurant as "my baby".
"It is getting a lick of paint at the moment, there's a courtyard out the back and a glass roof over the dining area," he says.
Describing the space as more of a Montpellier-like seamless drinking and dining venue, it will deliver a contemporary European menu. Kemp was approached by publican Warren Livingstone, a partner at the Riverview Dining Room in Balmain, who recently bought the Waverley pub. While the Charing Cross Hotel doesn't have previous dining pedigree, it has a rich history.
Former convict William Newland was its first licensee and early meetings of Waverley Council were held in the pub. "The Three Blue Ducks boys are down the road; it's a great area," Kemp says.
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