MoVida Spanish restaurant to open in Geelong

After moving out of the Lorne Hotel in June, MoVida is now working on plans to open a new regional venue – and Geelong is the lucky destination.

Chef-owner Frank Camorra grew up in Geelong and says the new restaurant, his fifth MoVida, will be just metres from where he started his cooking career as a teen at the now-closed Bamboleo.

MoVida Geelong, opening early 2023, will be going into what was the Eureka Hotel's band room, in a side street just off Little Malop Street.

The Eureka was one of the best-known venues in the city and one of the Little Malop strip's largest.

The pub was sold in December 2017 and subdivided, with part of the venue now bar-restaurant Westend. MoVida will occupy another chunk of the footprint.

Camorra says the design is a work in progress, but the venue will seat between 80 and 90, featuring MoVida hallmarks including plenty of bar seating to watch the action of the open kitchen.

The menu will be similar to Lorne's: classics combined with new dishes that make use of the producer relationships the team established during their three-and-a-half years on the coast.

The homecoming further cements Geelong's culinary rise and rise, particularly around the Little Malop Street precinct. Camorra says the city is "almost unrecognisable" compared to what it was.

This site follows the opening last month of a MoVida in Auckland.