Celebrity chef Manu Feildel makes surprise return to restaurant industry with pub bistro

After declaring the restaurant industry “broken” and stepping away from restaurants four years ago, My Kitchen Rules’ Manu Feildel is returning.

It’s official: TV chef Manu Feildel is returning to the restaurant game at Bistro Red Lion. Picture: Supplied

After declaring the restaurant industry broken and vowing never to open another venue, celebrity chef Manu Feildel is making a surprise return to the industry.

The My Kitchen Rules Host is set to open Bistro Red Lion by Manu at Rozelle’s 196-year-old pub The Red Lion.

“I’m doing it for different reasons this time – or right reasons this time – I’m doing it to have fun,” Feildel told The Daily Telegraph.

“I’m not chasing the acclaim, I’m cooking the food I love for customers.”

Feildel has partnered with Laundy Hotels, who own the historic pub and have just completed a eight month, $1.5 million renovation of the venue.

Celebrity chef Manu Feildel (left) returns to the restaurant game at Bistro Red Lion with his longtime friend, Jamie Gannon (right). Picture: Supplied

Feildel, who ran the critically acclaimed L’Etoile in Paddington before it closed in 2014, said he was lured back into the restaurant industry by good friend Jamie Gannon, who is Executive Chef at Laundy Hotels.

“I thought I would never do it again because (I) thought (the) industry is broken, but this opportunity is different. I just find it so expensive to go out these days. Ridiculously expensive. But being with the Laundy Group I can achieve a good menu without ripping the customer off,” Feildel said.

Feildel opened his first restaurant in Sydney, L'Etoile, in 2009.

“I’m not doing this to be a millionaire, but to satisfy something I felt was missing in my life. I’m 51 and ready to come back.”

Gannon has been with Australia’s largest privately-owned pub ground for eight years, with the purpose to elevate their food offering.

“I’ve tried to break the stigma of what pub food is. For a lot of our pubs the food is the same as a quality restaurant, it’s just the service model that’s relaxed,” he said.

The decision to bring Feildel onto this project was to push that further. Feildel’s bistro will be open from Thursday to Sunday, while downstairs the menu will feature pub classics all week.

“Manu and I have a pre-existing relationship and I wouldn’t do this without him. I couldn’t do it without him. The restaurant industry is too hard.”

For Feildel, it means a return to his French roots.

“I’m going back to what I love, which is French Bistro food and what we did at the start of L’Etoile before I deviated. Australians have been scared of French restaurants for (a) long time because they thought it was too heavy and too rich but now we are more educated,” he said.

“The decision to open in winter is clever because the menu is like a warm hug. There is nothing crazy, it’s just five bites, five entrees, five mains and five desserts which we will change seasonally.”

Feildel will open Bistro Red Lion at Rozelle’s Red Lion pub on July 12th.

Among the dishes included are his father’s French country-style pâté served with prune and Armagnac jam and toasted sourdough, scallop gratinée with café de Paris butter, chargrilled pork tomahawk with braised fennel and grainy mustard sauce; confit chicken Maryland on cannellini beans & kale fricassee with jus gras; and butcher’s cut of beef with pommes dauphine and a choice of house-made sauces.

The bistro is set to open on July 12th, in time for Bastille Day, and marks four years since Feildel last had a Sydney venue.

The Red Lion itself has been in Rozelle since 1828 and was acquired by the Laundy family in the late 90s, and subsequently taken over by Laundy’s daughter Danielle Richardson and her husband, Shane Richardson, in 2019.

The Laundy family also recently acquired Paddington’s The Light Brigade.

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