When news broke that award-winning Australian chef Shaun Quade had been lured back to Australia from California, the choice of Canberra as his destination followed the restaurant money. The nation’s capital is already simmering hospitality turf, and there are more potential operators hovering.

Quade, who picked up two chefs’ hats at Lume in Melbourne, packed up four years ago for California to work in the Silicon Valley food-tech sector, developing novel protein alternatives.

Now, he’s returned home as the new group culinary executive at The Lawns of the Lobby, a sprawling hospitality development where Ballyhoo bar-restaurant, Rosa’s garden bar and kiosk, and a function business will open early next year.

“It’s about 100 metres from Old Parliament House, in the site of The Lobby restaurant space, which closed about six years ago,” Quade says.

Silicon Valley start-ups gave Quade a nose for a good opportunity: “The economy here is really good; there’s a lot of double incomes.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Manny Spinola, a veteran Sydney restaurateur with a spread of interests, from Lola’s Italian in Bondi to Manon Brasserie at the QVB. In May 2022, he dipped his toe in Lake Burley Griffin, opening Walter Cafe and The Marion on its edge.

With many Sydney restaurants feeling the pinch of oversupply and interest rate hikes, Canberra’s economy and government sector job market offers a stable hospitality market.

“With business in Sydney slower, it’s great to have Canberra doing really well,” Spinola says. Walter Cafe and The Marion serve up to 4000 customers a week.

Canberra’s stocks have never been higher. New local eatery Such and Such edged past its more fancied Sydney rivals to be named New Restaurant of the Year at the Good Food Guide 2024 Awards.

Several big-name restaurant groups are tipped to join the party, with Merivale among the names mentioned by Canberra industry veterans as being among the groups keeping an eye on the market.

Shaun Presland, the former culinary director at Sydney’s Sake restaurant, has just finished an 18-month project at the start-up Tiger Lane precinct in Canberra. “The schools are great, and free. The disposable income is great, and restaurants there charge Sydney prices,” he says.

Quade predicts enormous growth in the local hospitality industry over the next few years “driven by our proximity to high-quality produce and winemakers, as well as a strong community appetite for new dining experiences”.