Melbourne game-changers announce ambitious first Brisbane restaurant

Don’t know Nathan Toleman? Because he probably helped change the way you think about cafes.

Toleman is founder of The Mulberry Group, the Melbourne-based hospitality powerhouse that was originally responsible for venues such as Top Paddock, The Kettle Black and Higher Ground. All have now been sold, but under Toleman’s stewardship they took the casual, bright but elegant style of all-day dining pioneered by Bills in Sydney, and step-changed it into ambitious, design-driven “breakfast restaurants”.

“There were nice enough sandwich joints, and there were restaurants, but nothing in the middle,” Toleman says. “We were, like, ‘Why don’t we open a cafe with the elements of a restaurant at cafe price points?’ And then everyone thought, ‘Oh, there’s an opportunity’.”

Now Toleman wants to do the same thing with hotel restaurants. And he’s starting in Brisbane. In October, Mulberry will open High Road Bar and Grill beneath Novotel Brisbane South Bank in South Brisbane.

“When you look at the best hotels around the world, the first thing you want to do is go to the restaurant. Chateau Marmont [in Los Angeles], Chiltern Firehouse [in London] – the restaurants are as big a part of the experience as the hotel. There’s been almost this belief in Australia that you go to a hotel and then you go [outside] to find a good restaurant. I’m like, ‘Why don’t we change that?’”

To be clear, there have for years been good hotel restaurants in Australia – Gowings at QT Sydney, Paper Daisy at Halcyon House in Cabarita and Raes on Wategos in Byron Bay, among many others – but overall Australian diners are yet to take this segment of the industry seriously.

Within hospitality circles, hotel’s kitchens can sometimes be dismissed as being too beholden to the bureaucracy of stakeholders that come with that industry.

“There’s been almost this belief in Australia that you go to a hotel, and then you go [outside] to find a good restaurant. I’m like, ‘Why don’t we change that?’”

The Mulberry Group’s Nathan Toleman

“In a restaurant, some meat comes in on Monday, we do a special, it’s on the menu that night,” Toleman says. “In a hotel, you have to submit it, get the tech guy to update the point-of-sale, go to marketing. By the time you get it done, the meat’s gone.

“We’re saying: if you want to be seen as a destination restaurant, you need to start acting like one.”

High Road has been conceptualised with both locals and visitors to the nearby performing arts precinct in mind. The restaurant will have its own entrance, and its design is intended to capture the feel of a classic Queenslander house.

“It has this beautiful dappled light in the morning,” Toleman says. “So you have that Queenslander vibe where you have the house as the main restaurant, and the whole outer edge is designed to feel like the verandah of your house, so you can engage with these different experiences.”

The restaurant’s design will feature warm timbers and layered textures throughout. Expect marble-top tables, leather banquettes, an open kitchen with low-set counters, and full-height windows with timber Venetians.

In the kitchen will be chef Gareth Woolcock, who has a background working in independent and hotel restaurants, both in Australia and the UK. Toleman says Woolcock’s restaurant and bar menus are yet to be finalised, but will reflect a lengthy recent history working in detail with local suppliers, and be based around a woodfired grill and oven.

For drinks, there will be an Australian-led wine list with a touch of European influence, alongside local craft beer and a cocktail menu that serves twists on the classics.

It might sound like ambitious stuff for a southern restaurant group’s first play in the local market – but beyond The Mulberry Group, Toleman is also a partner in Lune Croissanterie with sister-and-brother team Kate and Cameron Reid. He spent two months in Brisbane in 2021 project managing the build of Lune South Brisbane.

“I was here that whole time, experiencing the city,” he says. “And I was so impressed with the dining scene. Agnes is one of my favourite restaurants in Australia. There’s been so much focus historically on Sydney and Melbourne, but Brisbane is having this wake-up moment – we have the population, we have the produce, we have the people.”