When the Brisbane-based Artemus Group splashed out $110 million last year to buy Manly Wharf, it was just the start of a spending spree focused on acquiring and opening new venues at the wharf.

Now Artemus is snapping up the city’s hospitality talent, with up-and-coming chef Luke Bourke set to steer a new seafood restaurant opening at the wharf.

Bourke, a Rockpool alumnus who won The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide young chef of the year for 2025, has been appointed head chef at Felons Seafood, which opens on Friday, June 20.

It’s a reunion of sorts for former senior Rockpool chefs Corey Costelloe, now culinary consultant with Artemus, and Graeme Hunt, who has also joined as culinary operations manager at the Felons Manly pub next door. Felons Brewing Co. opened its first venue, at Brisbane’s Howard Smith Wharves, in 2018.

Felons Seafood will have 200 seats indoors and 120 more on the boardwalk, with an interior from Acme & Co – the design shop behind Sydney restaurants Margaret and Mimi’s – that includes a coral-hued marble kitchen pass.

“I’m excited to be back working alongside Corey to bring this vision to life,” Bourke said. The duo will transplant the produce-driven approach of their time together at Rockpool Bar & Grill, but with more surf than turf.

“We’ll use whole yellowbelly flounder, and some fish that people don’t usually turn to, like luderick,” Bourke said. Abalone sandwich will also appear on the opening menu.

In December, Artemus added Hugos Manly to its growing portfolio at the wharf, in a deal reported to have cost it $20 million, having already purchased Manly Wharf Bar from publican Ben May. Felons Seafood will open in the former home of The Bavarian, which departed last year when its lease ended. Artemus also plans to build a microbrewery in a nearby former supermarket site.

Artemus is also understood to be considering a function area for its harbourside Manly portfolio, but space is tight on the wharf, with non-Artemus restaurants Sake, El Camino and the Merivale-owned Queen Chow secure with tight leases.

Artemus has experience operating waterfront precincts. It took control of Brisbane’s Howard Smith Wharves 12 years ago, recrafting the site as a serious food destination, with a combination of its own venues and others including Greca restaurant, which is owned by Jonathan Barthelmess, the chef and co-owner at Apollo in Potts Point.

A graduate of the National Indigenous Culinary Institute, Bourke grew up in Darug Country in western Sydney. As well as Rockpool, he worked at Barangaroo’s Noma Australia pop-up in 2016 and regularly hosts First Nations seafood masterclasses at the Sydney Seafood School.

Bourke’s long-term goal has been to open a venue in Sydney’s west with his twin brother Sam and sister Teagan, who are also chefs.

For now, that plan will need to wait, but in the interim Bourke said his new work environment is pretty special: “I’ve been [watching] whales in the harbour.”