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June 25, 2013

23 June 2012 – Sydney Morning Herald | Menu rewritten as Berowra Waters Inn joins casualty list


ALREADY tracking as one of the worst seasons on record for upmarket dining, Sydney’s winter of restaurant discontent has claimed another high-profile scalp with Berowra Waters Inn serving its last lunch tomorrow.

The news came as Greg Doyle, the owner and chef at Pier, at Rose Bay, announced that restaurant would close.

He will step away from the restaurant, which will become a more casual diner.

The administrator, Joe Atkinson, from SV Partners, said the Berowra Waters Inn and its sibling, Ad Lib Bistro, in Pymble, would close this weekend.

The restaurants had been attempting to trade their way out of administration since last year.

They were operating within their budgets until a few months ago though Ad Lib, in particular, had felt the pinch.

“We had to return a certain amount of money; we’d paid off about half of that,” restaurateur Dietmar Sawyere said.

Mr Atkinson added: “We tried to make it work.  Now we just have to try and realise something for the creditors.”

Adam Spencer-Carr, from Spencer-Carr Property, has been appointed by the administrator to sell the northside restaurants.

“Ad Lib had a $400,000 refurbishment.  Obviously it’ll go for a much lower amount.  The restaurant still has plenty of scope,” Mr Spencer-Carr said.

At Pier, Mr Doyle is departing without any suggestion of financial distress.  After several changes in recent years and attempts to steer away from three-toque dining, Doyle will close the 21-year-old harbourside restaurant at the end of next month.

Senior Pier staff will open The Sailors Club in its place.  It will have a “relaxed lounge bar” vibe.

While Pier set the standard for Australian seafood restaurants over the past two decades, Berowra Waters Inn stamped itself on the Sydney dining vernacular from its 1977 opening by Tony and Gay Bilson.

The restaurant lost some of its shine in its post-Bilson era, but Forty One chef Dietmar Sawyere’s relaunch in 2007 prompted great reviews and restaurant awards flowed.

Mr Sawyere blamed the opening of the short-lived Ad Lib Bistro in Double Bay for much of the financial predicament and debt the group has faced.

“We’ve put everything we have into it; we’ve done our best,” Mr Sawyere said.

The restaurant industry was rocked this month when Becasse owner-chef Justin North placed his stable of restaurants in voluntary administration.

Diner numbers, design and wage costs together with an oversupply of restaurants has caused a number of restaurant closures.

Manly Pavilion, Cotton Duck, Smith’s on Bayswater and Rambutan have closed.

TV chefs Manu Feidel and Miguel Maestre closed Aperitif in Kings Cross, and kitchen veteran Tony Bilson also shut his fine diner, Bilson’s.

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