Top restaurant and blockbuster Melbourne outfit to open Brisbane bakeries

Melbourne’s Lune Croissanterie and Valley smash-hit wood-fired restaurant Agnes are both opening bakeries in Brisbane next year.

Ty Simon, Ben Williamson and Frank Li outside their new Valley restaurant. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Melbourne’s blockbuster Lune Croissanterie is opening a flagship store in Brisbane in winter next year.

Lune, which was opened in 2012 in inner-city Fitzroy by Kate Reid, an ex-Formula 1 aerodynamicist, also later opened an outlet in Collins St and is expanding into Sydney.

The company announced that they have been offered an opportunity for a site in South Brisbane’s Fish Lane and have spent the past two days on site meeting with developers and architects.

“The food and beverage scene is absolutely going off up there and we cannot wait to bring Lune to you.”

Kate Reid in her mega-popular croissant shop Lune in Fitzroy. Picture: Sarah Matray

Lune attracts enormous queues and its croissants have been dubbed the world’s best.
Also this week one of the world’s best bakers, Daniel Chirico, announced he will open a store in the new Long Island Gasworks precinct at Newstead next year.

World-class celebrity bakery comes to Brisbane’s Newstead

Meanwhile Agnes restaurant in the Valley is also planning on revisiting their unplanned smash-hit bakery that grew quickly out of COVID restrictions.

As he worked through the night in the dramatic early days of lockdown, shaping loaf after loaf of sourdough, little did Ben Williamson realise he was also forming his future.

The chef and co-owners Ty Simon and Frank Li (of other Valley haunts Same Same and Honto) had yet to open the doors of their long-awaited wood-fired restaurant, Agnes, when COVID hit.

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To keep staff employed, as well as some of those from the other restaurants, the owners improvised and opened a bakery. There were soon queues for the daily output of 220 loaves of sourdough, 400 doughnuts and hundreds of pastries.

“I worked all night, I’d start in the late afternoon and finish in the morning,” says Agnes head chef Williamson. “I listened to a lot of podcasts, but I loved it.”

Inspired by his passion for this unexpected pivot, Williamson and his partners plan to open a bakery next year.

Tyron Simon, Ben Williamson and Frank Li on the site of their new Italian restaurant, Bianca in Fortitude Valley. Picture: Steve Pohlner

They are also opening a new Italian restaurant beside The Calile Hotel in the Valley’s James Street on the site of the defunct Beaux Rumble. It will be named Bianca for Simon’s partner, who hails from Milan, with the interior being given a dramatic makeover by the hotel’s architects Richards & Spence, and will be ready to go in February.

Plans are for a large antipasto section, breads from the wood-fired oven, six main courses including favourites such as porchetta and cotoletta, and six pastas.

Ty Simon and Ben Williamson when Agnes was operating as a bakery earlier this year. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

Ty Simon was named The Courier-Mail’s Business Person of the Year at last month’s 2020 Lord Mayor’s Business Awards, which were presented by then acting mayor Krista Adams.

Cr Adams said the hospitality sector endured some incredibly harsh conditions when doors had to shut during the onset of the pandemic and patronage was limited but Simon’s perseverance and determination made him a role model for the business community.