Brisbane’s Naldham House is poised for renewal thanks to Godfrey Mantle

One of Brisbane’s most astute and successful restaurateurs, Godfrey Mantle, has just secured development approval to open a new venue in a Heritage-listed CBD property.

Godfrey Mantle of the Mantle Group in front of Jimmy's on the Mall.

HISTORIC FACELIFT
THE now-shuttered historic home of Brisbane’s defunct Polo Club is poised for a multimillion-dollar renewal.

One of the city’s most astute and successful restaurateurs, Godfrey Mantle, has just secured development approval to open a new venue in Heritage-listed Naldham House in the CBD.

Mantle told City Beat yesterday that it’s taken him a bit over 18 months to get the green light to upgrade the three-level building on Mary St at the foot of Waterfront Place.

“It really is an exquisite, iconic building. There’s nothing else like it in Brisbane or, as a stand-alone building, in Australia,’’ he said.

“It has lovely elements to it and delicately enhancing that is something we’re good at. We have a long history of dealing with old buildings. We think we can do it well.’’

Construction work is likely to start early in the new year and take about six months.

When complete, it will feature a large and covered outdoor dining area where the gardens are now located.

The venue has yet to be named, but Mantle said it would not trade under the banner of any of his existing chain of outlets, which include the Pig ’N’ Whistle, Jimmy’s On The Mall, Cafe East and The Charming Squire.

Built between 1864 and 1889, Naldham House operated as the members-only Polo Club for 25 years, playing host to plenty of the city’s movers and shakers.

But dwindling membership and big losses forced the club to shut down in mid-2015 and sell to Singaporean billionaire investor Koh Wee Meng for $11 million.

Just five months later Meng flipped the property for $15.4 million to the Dexus Property Group, which had just acquired Waterfront Place.

By the time Mantle throws open the doors in the second half of next year, he’ll be getting ready to float.

Yes, the Mantle Group is finally going public but he wouldn’t say how much he’ll be seeking to raise in the IPO.

QRC RESHUFFLE
ELECTION commitments have forced Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to pull the plug on her scheduled address to the Queensland Resources Council annual lunch on Tuesday.

Instead, a crowd of more than 700 at Brisbane’s convention centre will take in the wit and wisdom of Resources Minister Matt Canavan.

Dr Alan Finkel, who probably wishes he had never cranked out that report on the future of the nation’s electricity market, will also go missing from the pre-lunch forum.

Meanwhile, 17 greenie protesters from a group calling themselves Frontline Action on Coal briefly occupied Adani headquarters in Townsville on Monday, including three who locked themselves together in front of the entrance.

That drew a rather pithy response from a spokesman for the Indian mining giant.

“Interesting they are all fly-in-fly-out protesters, no locals,’’ he told us.

“Also, FYI, police issued an infringement notice last Friday to an activist for urinating in public at Disney station protest. Another activist is being hunted for same offence.’’

MENTAL AS
IT’S a long way to the top if you want to be prime minister.

But even then you should be able to name at least one favourite song by the legendary AC/DC.

Not Malcolm Turnbull, who paused and, incredibly, came up with nothing when he was asked by Marto, Ed and Robin on Triple M’s breakfast show in Brisbane on Monday.

After turning the tables and asking the hosts’ to name their favourite tune, Turnbull admitted that his top pick from “that era’’ was Mental As Anything’s If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?

Not exactly the kind of bone-crunching rock that AC/DC cranked out in its heyday, is it?

Given the passing of band co-founder Malcolm Young this week, you might think the PM’s minders would have had a briefing note or two to help him out.