Colour, cocktails and classic cuisine – Historic Naldham House re-opens doors this week
After many months of waiting, Naldham House – DAP & Co.’s landmark hospitality hub – is finally set to open to the public on Thursday July 18.
Housing a European-style brasserie, a sun-soaked alfresco terrace bar and a late-night cocktail joint (plus one more venue still to be announced), Naldham House is poised to make a pivotal mark on Brisbane’s dining scene. Take a tour inside before the venue launches later this week …
With precious few heritage-listed buildings remaining in Brisbane, becoming the custodian of one of these cherished spaces comes with a certain amount of pressure. Andrew Baturo is no stranger to that kind of pressure. For the restaurateur – one of the head honchos behind hospitality group DAP & Co. – doing justice to heritage has become a bit of a calling card.
DAP & Co.’s lauded cocktail bar The Gresham is housed in a corner of the National Australia Bank building on Queen Street, while the group’s top-tier steakhouse Walter’s resides in Old Mineral House over on Alice Street. Separately, Andrew also operates French-Vietnamese institution Libertine, which has long occupied a portion of The Barracks in Petrie Terrace.
This Thursday July 18, Naldham House – the grand 140-year-old heritage-listed landmark (previously home to Brisbane Polo Club) on the corner Mary and Felix Streets – will soon be reborn as DAP & Co.’s new multifaceted dining hub.
Spread across three levels and an outdoor terrace, it’s the group’s largest endeavour by far. Andrew readily admits that the pressure surrounding the anticipated launch of Naldham House is much more intense than previous openings, but there’s not a lot of discernible nervousness in his demeanour when we catch up mere days before Naldham House’s official launch. If anything, Andrew exudes a quiet confidence.
“We [Andrew and DAP & Co. co-founders Paul Piticco and Denis Sheahan] have 13 years of working together under our belt and a very, very strong team behind us,” Andrew says. “We’re certainly confident, but we’re not cocky. I don’t think Dexus would have put us on the books, so to speak, if they didn’t feel that we were confident in producing world-class venues.
“Heritage has become something that we have become experts in – that’s an arrow in our quiver that maybe a lot of people don’t have. The idea of doing heritage for us wasn’t as daunting for something this size as it might have been to someone else who hasn’t – we’ve done six or seven heritage buildings.”
This pedigree is, no doubt, a chief reason behind Dexus’s decision to offer the Naldham House opportunity to DAP & Co., instead of other local and interstate players. And though the stakes are high, a quick swivel of the eyeballs around the venue’s first two concepts – Naldham House Brasserie & Terrace and Club Felix – is all it takes to see that Andrew, Paul, Dennis and their team have pulled off the feat with flying colours.
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Naldham House Brasserie and Terrace, the venue’s European-inspired ground-floor restaurant fuses the glamour of the grand hotel lobbies of yesteryear with a maximal, kaleidoscopic colour scheme curated by acclaimed interior designer Anna Spiro.
Bringing together a myriad of hues, patterns and textiles to contrast sharply with the building’s classical architecture, the restaurant is undoubtedly one of the most striking dining rooms in Brisbane.
A glamorous bar anchors one end of the room, boasting a marble countertop, custom green-painted fridges and an arched back bar illuminated by LEDs. The dining floor features a mix of curved booths, eclectic table and chair combinations and a cluster of couches.
At the other end of the space is the building’s original marble fireplace, which is ensconced by a green library-inspired feature wall boasting artwork by Clare Dubina. Behind a set of tasselled curtains – green and orange in colour – sits a private dining space furnished with three long eight-seater tables.
Though impressively vibrant, Naldham House’s interior design doesn’t outshine the building’s heritage character, something that was an essential stipulation in DAP & Co.’s aesthetic brief.
“[Anna] really felt that empathy to the existing beautiful craftsmanship – the windowsills, the ceiling roses, the beautiful stairwell, the pilasters and the colonnades,” says Andrew. “They sit alongside this beautifully retro but modern – and very exciting and bold – palette that only Anna can create, but at the same time, none of those beautiful parts of the building are overwhelmed.”
Matching the stunning interiors is a vibrant Euro brasserie-style menu crafted by executive chef Douglas Keyte (previously executive chef of hatted Melbourne restaurant Grill Americano), who has brought his own culinary sensibilities to the fore with an offering that suits leisurely lunches and decadent dinners.
Entrees like Hervey Bay half-shell scallops with spicy ’nduja and hand-cut beef tartare lead into a sturdy selection of mains. Beef cheek bourguignon pithivier, noisettes of Margra lamb with lentils du Puy and speck, and roasted half Bannockburn free-range chicken are exceptional options, but special mention must be made of Naldham Brasserie’s large-format showstoppers – a 650-g dry-aged black Berkshire pork tomahawk with mustard creme (Andrew’s personal recommendation) and an 800-g cote de boeuf with bordelaise sauce.
Out on the terrace, guests are treated to a more informal atmosphere – a 120-pax alfresco area that wraps around the side of the building facing Waterfront Place, equipped with its own green-tile-clad bar that dispenses drinks and its own menu of snacks.
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We’re talking chicken-skin crisp with whipped cod roe and Oscietra caviar, Ora King salmon gravlax finger sandwiches with herb mayonnaise, pork rillettes with toasted baguette, and braised oxtail ragu.
On the beverage front, Naldham House Brasserie & Terrace pours an impressive list of wine from Australia and abroad, as well as a range of cocktails. The signature concoctions lean towards a lighter, fruity and summery profile, with the Mandarino Spritz (amaro, mandarin liqueur, mandarin, rosemary, soda and prosecco), the Pomme Florale (gin, apple liqueur, elderflower liqueur, fresh apple juice and elderflower tonic) and the Peche & Honey Julep (bourbon, peach liqueur, honey syrup and mint syrup) already looking like warm-weather favourites.
Upstairs sits Club Felix, a luxurious late-night haunt that Andrew describes as a “working cocktail lounge with French influences and late-night snacks.” Operating until 2:00 am later in the week, Club Felix boasts a sense of chic sophistication and informal approachability.
An Yves Klein Blue-centric colour scheme has been applied to the moodily lit space, which boasts an oak timber bar (retained from the building itself), armchair sofas and banquettes.
Here, it’s all about the classics. Cocktails such as Sidecars, French 75s and Juleps are available alongside a clutch of signatures like the Brulee Flip (cognac, fortified wine, burnt sugar syrup, chocolate bitters and grated chocolate) and the Cafe Felix (spiced rum, coffee, vanilla syrup, macadamia and wattleseed liqueur and grated chocolate).
Club Felix also boasts one of Brisbane’s biggest champagne lists, with 18 selections available by the glass alongside a suite of French wines all under Coravin. A tight snack menu features the likes of salumi with gnocco fritto, jamon and comte toasties, potato pave fingers topped with caviar and creme fraiche, salted cod and potato croquettes, and caramel profiteroles.
With one more to-be-announced venue still to open later this year, Naldham House is shaping up to be an era-defining landmark of Brisbane’s inner-city dining scene – an attention-grabbing fixture capable of luring in locals and visitors. As for the role Andrew believes Naldham House will fill moving forward, he’s hesitant to prognosticate.
“When we opened up The Gresham, people asked us what kind of bar it was going to be,” Andrew recalls. “We wanted it to just be a bar, because we don’t see any sense in pigeonholing what we do early on. We listen to what our clientele want and we want to hear what they think – and the direction we might go in may be dictated by what people think we should be providing for them.”
What Andrew is firmly set on is who Naldham House is for and what the venue represents.
“This is a Brisbane venue,” Andrew declares. “It’s an international venue, but it’s in Brisbane. This is ours.”
Both Naldham House Brasserie & Terrace and Club Felix officially open to the public on Thursday July 18.
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