Dave Evans sues Sydney Opera House Trust after losing to rival
It has all the ingredients — two celebrity chefs, a “double-crossing architect” and a blue-ribbon spot at the foot of the Sydney Opera House. And it will all play out in a courtroom after Dave Evans launched legal action after losing a tender to rival Matt Moran.
NSW
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Celebrity chef David Evans has launched a multimillion-dollar lawsuit claiming his rival Matt Moran’s company cheated to win the rights to run Sydney’s Opera Bar with the help of a double-crossing architect.
Evans, owner of the successful Hugo’s chain, was left seething in 2014 after he ploughed more than $300,000 into his bid to win a 10-year lease for the blue ribbon bar at the foot of the Sydney Opera House, only to lose to Moran’s company Solotel.
He now claims that Moran, a former MasterChef judge, won thanks to a rigged tender process and the long-simmering tensions between the pair are set to spill into the NSW Supreme Court.
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Mr Moran rejected this claim on Friday, saying his company won “fair and square”.
Evans launched legal action in June against the Sydney Opera House Trust as well as Darlinghurst-based architect Christopher Leslie Grinham and his firm H & E Architects.
He is not suing Moran or Solotel.
He claims Mr Grinham leaked confidential plans and designs for the bar to one of Moran’s partners in their company Solotel, which won the tender.
Mr Grinham has strongly denied this.
The plans included Mr Evans’ bar placement and grand idea for a “charcuterie”, a meat and cheese room.
Mr Evans also claims the Sydney Opera House Trust, which controls the tender, then gave Solotel an unfair advantage by allowing it to make a second submission after the deadline had closed.
That submission allegedly featured stolen ideas plus “substantial concept and design changes”.
When contacted, Mr Evans declined to comment other than to say he was the “David” to the Sydney Opera House Trust’s “Goliath”.
“I feel like we were severely wronged, and the Court is the right place to find out who pulled what strings on the Opera Bar tender, so I can’t comment further,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Mr Moran said he could not comment other than to say: “The tender process as far as we were concerned was legit and we won fair and square.”
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Mr Grinham did not return calls.
The Circular Quay bar, which has uninterrupted views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, is a licence to print money with tickets to this years' New Year’s Eve party fetching $495 each, without drinks.
The Trust and Mr Grinham are fighting Mr Evans’ claim and have filed defences with the court vehemently denying any wrongdoing.
According to court documents, Mr Evans said he showed Mr Grinham his “confidential” plans and designs for Opera Bar at a lunch on July 25, 2014, the day after the tender deadline closed, when he asked the architect about working with him.
Mr Evans claims that on August 12, 2014, Mr Grinham admitted he had been hired by Solotel and leaked his design plans.
Mr Grinham denied this and his defence statement said that during a “social lunch” Mr Evans “insisted” on handing him a book, which he “flipped through without noting or committing to memory any particular detail”.
The architect began working for Solotel to assist with their tender application in late July or early August, 2014, but denied leaking any of Mr Evans’ plans.
After the tender deadline had passed, Mr Evans claims The Sydney Opera House Trust allowed Solotel to submit “140 pages of further material”, which included ideas stolen from him.
This included the “charcuterie room”, a “cafe and bar”, bar layouts and a similar shade structure layout.
Solotel was the incumbent lessee and Mr Evans is suing the Opera House Trust for breach of contract claiming they gave Moran’s company an unfair advantage in the tender process.
Mr Evans claims the Trust breached its own terms and conditions by allowing Solotel submit beyond the deadline and by not offering any of the other competing companies the same opportunity.
The Trust denied this and in its documents filed with the court said its terms and conditions allowed it to accept “further submissions” without informing other companies competing for the tender.
The matter will return to court on December 7.