Alfi restaurant and bar to open in Everton Park
Everton Park will be the site of an expanded Mediterranean venue. A design inspired by Amalfi and the opportunity to dine in the courtyard for 250 people await you.
Boonah, Melbourne and now Everton Park. If nothing else, Ghanem Group has gotten comfortable operating outside its comfort zone in the last six months.
Until May, the furthest the Ghanems were from the CBD and inner suburbs was Hamilton and Byblos, the restaurant that founded the group. Since then, it’s been all about the CBD and Fortitude Valley, with venues such as Donna Chang’s, Blackbird, Iris and Boom Boom Room, among others.
The purchase and renovation of the Commercial Hotel made sense for the Ghanems, who own a farm nearby. And the opening of Blackbird’s Melbourne chapter has perhaps offered further insight into the capacity of the Brisbane food scene to now compete with other state capitals; it was still a Blackbird in the inner city.
But Everton Park perhaps feels more strategic; A new concept tweaked for the Brisbane suburbs.
Towards the middle of next year, the Ghanems will open Alfi, a spacious, 350-seat, Mediterranean-inspired restaurant and bar in the Everton Plaza area.
“I think we now have the confidence to undertake such a project that we did not have six or seven years ago,” says Adonis Ghanem, director of Ghanem Group. “We’ve improved a lot, especially since Covid-19. We now have the skills and knowledge base that we didn’t have 10 years ago.”
“For us it was just about getting a feel for the site. We don’t often look for sites but we are offered sites and we turn down many more than we take on.
“We saw it, we loved the feel of it and the scale of it. If you go to Everton Plaza on any given night, there’s a lot of excitement there. We were surprised how many people were there on a normal night.”
Alfi will be located on the ground floor of a newly developed food and beverage precinct within the retail and dining precinct. Ghanem Group says it expects a light-filled space with a large, open kitchen and a long U-shaped bar that extends to a large, greenery-covered 200-seat courtyard.
Ghanem Group describes Alfi’s cuisine as broadly Mediterranean, but stands out as the cornerstone of coastal Italian cuisine, and the design is intended to reflect the Amalfi Coast. There will be dining booths fitted with curved ceiling features and heavy curtains, alongside a soft, neutral palette of light wood, Italian marble and pastel furnishings.
The outdoor patio dining and pergola theme will be carried into the home.
Longtime Ghanem Group executive chef Jake Nicolson set out to write a menu that would encompass the Italian peninsula, drawing inspiration from the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
“Jake is really excited about it too,” Ghanem said. “There is another cuisine for him to deal with. When you think of Italian, of course you think of pizza and pasta, which he is very familiar with.”
“But obviously there’s so much more to it than that, and we’re really excited to expand that scope a little more and show customers what else can be done with this cuisine and the broader Mediterranean influence.”
Ghanem Group restaurants have always been approachable no matter which end of the market. Adonis Ghanem says Alfi will be especially so.
But he said it was also about meeting demand for quality venues outside the CBD.
“Brisbane was very central to food for a very long time, just like us, but as the population grew it got to the stage where there was enough density to support these little pockets beyond the city and the inner suburbs.
“It’s a great opportunity for us because the area already has a name for itself with some really good operators… We’re excited to come in and offer our take on a large format venue. All the other operators out there are quite small and we’ll complement them by going into that scale.”
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at the Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-in-chief at Broadsheet Brisbane and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among others.
