The owner of one of Melbourne’s most popular restaurants has chosen the site for his next venture. And it isn’t on Collins Street or the Mornington Peninsula.

Alejandro Saravia, the chef behind Farmer’s Daughters, will open a restaurant at the hallowed heart of Sydney, in the GPO building at Martin Place.

Saravia confirmed he’s nabbed the former site of Intermezzo, the Italian restaurant that closed during the pandemic, and a neighbouring store, where he’ll open Morena restaurant in November.

For Sydneysiders who may not have been swept up in the Farmer’s Daughters story, Melbourne-based Good Food national editor Ardyn Bernoth said the restaurant has etched itself on the city’s food psyche since opening in Exhibition Street in early 2021.

“It’s always full,” says Bernoth. “It leans heavily on the produce of Gippsland. Whatever Alejandro does next will be interesting.”

Saravia followed the move a year later by opening Victoria by Farmer’s Daughters in Melbourne’s Federation Square.

The Sydney restaurant will work directly with NSW farmers and producers in the same way as his Melbourne venues, but the Morena menu will lean on the Peruvian chef’s Latin American roots, sweeping everywhere from Cuba to Brazil, and of course Peru, for inspiration.

Interior details are still being finalised but architecture and design firm Ewert Leaf (Moonhouse and Lune Croissanterie, Melbourne) has been briefed to add a Latin American colonial touch while maintaining the GPO building’s heritage aesthetic.

In some ways, the 220-seat Martin Place restaurant represents unfinished business for the chef. After migrating to Australia, he opened a restaurant in Surry Hills, also named Morena. While it only lasted from 2011 to 2013, it was possibly before its time.

“Australians’ understanding of Latin American cuisine has developed in the last decade, with more restaurants opening and more travel between Australia and the Americas,” Saravia says.

After his success in Victoria, the shift back to the Sydney market could prove not only well-timed but well-placed for the chef, whose CV includes a spell at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Britain.

After a tough spell for Martin Place, which had restaurants Prime and Sosumi close during the pandemic, the precinct appears to be on the uptick, with a posse of upcoming hospitality offerings including Lune Croissanterie and the restaurant and live music venue Caterpillar Club, which opens in October.

Damian Frazzica, the executive from real estate company CBRE, which leased the Morena restaurant site, says more key hospitality signings are on the way at the GPO building.

Frazzica is understandably bullish about Martin Place’s mix of high-end luxury retailers and heritage buildings: “I really think it’ll be one of Sydney’s premium dining destinations.”