Bar tsar-turned-restaurateur Fraser Short has continued his great hospitality sell-off, and is in the process of off-loading Circular Quay’s Whalebridge restaurant and The Morrison on George Street to former Merivale chief operating officer Brett Sergeant and industry executive James Wicks.

Short confirmed settlement was scheduled for this week. It follows hot on the heels of Short’s mega sale last month of his share in five pubs – including the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel – to his business partners in the hotels, Arthur Laundy and Laundy Hotels.

Whalebridge opened last year at the site of the former Sydney Cove Oyster Bar, a prized location on the edge of Sydney Harbour. The mostly open restaurant suffered a difficult birth, lashed by record Sydney rainfall.

Whalebridge’s incoming owners have already started to return it to its original offering. “It was dumbed-down significantly,” Sergeant says. The revised brief is proper French bistro with full table service.

Sergeant, who started at Merivale when it had just 300 staff and says it had grown to 3200 when he departed in 2016, long admired The Morrison.

“It was across the road from our offices,” he says. “It was always a great site.”

Its brasserie is already tracking well, according to Sergeant, and the venue will get some tweaks with larger-scale work planned in 12 months.

Sergeant and Wicks will look to eventually add to their portfolio, with pubs with food potential high on their shopping list.