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Merivale closes Papi Chulo to make way for Queen Chow Manly

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Farewell Papi Chulo, hello Queen Chow Manly.
Farewell Papi Chulo, hello Queen Chow Manly.Edwina Pickles

Manly's Papi Chulo restaurant will close on May 1, with owner Justin Hemmes's culinary divining rod shifting away from Papi's Americana cuisine to Asian.

"We'll open Queen Chow Manly there [in] early June after a four-week turnaround [for a quick redesign]," Mr Hemmes said.

The venture would be an offshoot of Merivale's Queen Chow restaurant in Enmore, with senior food crew at the inner-west venue overseeing the Manly start-up, the bar tsar and restaurateur said.

Rumours of an Asian reboot have been bobbing around the harbourside venue for months, but the early favourite was thought to be a transplant of Mr Wong.

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"It was toss-up between Mr Wong and Queen Chow but we went with Queen Chow. We'd like to do another Mr Wong sometime, but somewhere else - it'd be spectacular," Mr Hemmes said.

Merivale had a close look at the Manly market before judging the area short of Chinese restaurants.

"Chinese is the right thing for Manly ... everyone loves Chinese," Mr Hemmes said.

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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