Morgan McGlone collaborates with Hotel Harry, Belle’s Hot Chicken expands

Kiwi chef Morgan McGlone is expanding his expertise beyond Belle’s super-hot and successful chicken wings.

Belle's Hot Chicken - Chef Morgan McGlone with a basket of chicken. Picture by Chris Pavlich.

Larger-than-life Kiwi chef Morgan McGlone — the man behind the successful Belle’s Hot Chicken restaurant in Melbourne and pop-up in Sydney — has put yet another iron in the fire.

McGlone has taken on the challenge of reinventing the food at Hotel Harry in Surry Hills, Sydney, as a consultant “chef resident”.

Morgan McGlone with a basket of Belle’s chicken.

“I get pigeonholed because of the Belle’s thing,” says McGlone, who worked a number of years in the US at the highly influential Sean Brock restaurant Husk, in Charleston, Virginia. He is, as a result, an expert on southern American cuisine.

“But this is nothing to do with Belle’s and to be honest I jump an any opportunity to broaden my horizons.”

“I’ve done a number of pop-ups at Hotel Harry with (Icebergs chef) Monty Koludrovic,” McGlone says. “The guys behind the business have asked me to come in take the menu from a nuevo Latino thing to a more southern US style, more or less get the kitchen back on track.

“They have a massive smoker down there and its time for that to flex its muscles.”

McGlone’s consultancy begins in April.

Belle’s also is expanding. McGlone has confirmed a permanent restaurant, to follow the pop-up, is under serious consideration; and a second 100-seat Belle’s will open in Richmond, Melbourne, this week. At his Fitzroy original, the floorspace for dining has just been expanded into the zone hitherto known as Bar Clarines.