Lola's restaurateurs team up again on Manon, a 'grand' Euro-style brasserie in Sydney CBD

Less than six months after they buddied up to open Lola's Level 1 at Bondi Beach, restaurateurs Marco Ambrosino and Manny Spinola are at it again, working together on a "grand" Euro-style brasserie in the heart of the Sydney CBD.

The latest project has quite a checklist. Historic building? They've snapped up the street-level Jet Bar Caffe site at the QVB. Chef? They've lured Frenchman Thomas Boisselier fresh from a stint as head chef at Oscar in Lyon. Before that he worked with three-Michelin-starred chef Christophe Bacquie.

The owners of the incoming venue have a few impressive clicks on the hospitality odometer. Spinola owns a posse of venues, including The Tea Room QVB, and Ambrosino is co-owner at Fratelli Paradiso, where he remains a working partner.

"I've been walking past that [Jet Bar] site since 1997," says Spinola. "The idea was to put a grand cafe-brasserie, in the vein of what you'd find in Europe, in what I call the heart of the city [it's opposite Town Hall]."

When word reached them Boisselier was keen to relocate to Australia, the duo phoned the chef in France. Next thing, he was cooking a tasting menu for them in Sydney. "There was his passion for food, and the right balance between tradition and evolving tradition," Spinola says.

Chris Grinham from H&E Architects, who designed Lola's Level 1, will craft the new space. And where Lola's was named after Ambrosino's daughter, when it opens in May, the QVB brasserie will take its name from Spinola's daughter, Manon.