By Vanessa Cavasinni, editor Australian Hotelier
This weekend, Urban Purveyor Group will take over the site of 7 Alfred Place, in Melbourne’s CBD, currently home to Stokehouse restaurant. The site was purchased from Stokehouse Restaurants for an undisclosed amount, and will be renamed The Alfred.
Urban Purveyor Group plans to redesign the site, with the help of Melissa Collison Design, to become an entertainment hub, featuring The Cut Steakhouse – a sister site to the group’s Cut Bar & Grill in Sydney – a burger and barbecue-focused casual dining concept, a speakeasy bar, a hunting-lodge-inspired lounge, private dining rooms, cellars and a butcher takeaway shop.
At night, the precinct will also add to Melbourne CBD’s nightlife, with DJs and other entertainers playing throughout The Alfred precinct. The front of the building will be opened up by turning three of the five ground floor windows into doors, so that customers can access the laneway within the building.
The luxurious and grandiose nature of the existing building made it a perfect choice for what Urban Purveyor Group had in mind. CEO Thomas Pash said: “The two levels and spacious interior allows us to offer customers a number of different stylish spaces where they can dine, enjoy a few drinks, relax after work or entertain guests. We want to give customers a dining and entertainment destination to explore – a place where they keep coming back to try new bars, lounges and dining rooms, and the size of the building enables that.”
The Alfred Place site was one that the hospitality giant had had its eye on for quite a while as it was perfect for the kind of entertainment precinct they had in mind.
“We have been looking for the right property in Melbourne for about a year and fought fiercely for the site as we know it’s a premier location where a dining and entertainment precinct of this kind will thrive. A space of this magnitude is pretty standard in cities like New York, London and LA and we believe the Melbourne dining scene is crying out for something of this size and calibre,” said Pash.
The Alfred is expected to open in June.
