ARC Dining’s Alanna Sapwell reveals new pop-up restaurant
She was the chef of the year behind Queensland’s No.1 restaurant. Now, four months after its closure, she’s opted for a seachange, setting up a pop-up project where another award-winning restaurant once served diners.
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SHE’S The Courier-Mail’s chef of the year and talent behind Queensland’s No.1 restaurant, now Alanna Sapwell will today unveil a hot new eatery.
Esmay will be an exciting three-month pop-up taking over the space formerly housing award-winning Japanese restaurant Wasabi at Noosa, and it is already booking out weeks in advance.
ARC Dining announces it is closing down as coronavirus crisis delivers fatal blow
See the complete delicious.100 for 2019
After losing her job at Queensland’s delicious.100 winning restaurant ARC Dining in March when it closed permanently due to coronavirus, Ms Sapwell decided it was time to go out on her own.
“Once the whole thing at ARC finished I was like, ‘OK, time to reassess... start again, where do I want to be?’ ” said Ms Sapwell, who grew up in Gympie and did her cheffing apprenticeship in Noosa.
“That realisation that I still want to be in Queensland, family is close, I really love the producers here and everyone that I’ve built up those relationships with, so... it’s like going back home again.”
The pop-up will be the chef’s first solo project as a restaurateur, which she said had been a huge learning curve.
While she has been helped by former Wasabi owner Danielle Gjestland, who closed her venue pre-COVID-19 with plans to move to Japan, Ms Sapwell said Esmay would be completely different, boasting a more “casual, perkier and loud” vibe.
“We’re just going to have fun. I think that’s what everyone needs after COVID,” Ms Sapwell said.
The food will be a unique take on modern Australian cuisine with a heavy focus on seafood, given the restaurant’s location on the edge of the Noosa River. Many other ingredients will be sourced from the restaurant’s own farm nearby.
A set menu of snacks and a substantial main for $60 per head will be offered at dinner to keep it affordable for locals, while also allowing them to splurge during a Sunday long lunch for $120 per head.
“The food, even at ARC I was refrained from doing certain things, where as now it’s going to be on the daily off the cuff,” she said.
“We’re going to have a joke and have a bit of fun with it and very nostalgic as well. That’s what I want to be cooking at the moment.”
