External view of the Woollahra Hotel
The Woollahra Hotel has relaunched following a $1.4m refurbishment

The Woollahra Hotel has announced its official relaunch, featuring a rework of its Front Bar and a new menu.

The Woollahra Hotel have also engaged the services of Chef Jordan Muhamad, previously of Rockpool, Spice Temple and Chin Chin.

Muhamad has been involved in the new food offering of Upstairs at the Woollahra Hotel, which includes the outdoor Terrace, Main Bar and Function rooms, and the new pub menu offered on the ground floor.

The new food offering is described as a ‘contemporary pub menu with an Asian Influence’, as Muhamad and team have considerable Asian culinary experience.

The Hotel’s ‘locals front bar’ has also been reinstated, with the redesign said to preserve the Art Deco original features, whilst incorporating aspects of European modernism.

Bistro Moncur, the Woollahra Hotel’s French restaurant, found in the adjacent plot, has also undergone a refurbishment, while retaining Head Chef Mark Williamson and his team.

The menu includes ‘classic favourites’, alongside seasonal specials and international wines. Both Bistro Moncur and Upstairs at the Woollahra offer bookable spaces.

The Woollahra Hotel made headlines earlier in 2021, when it was reported they had exploited a loophole in the law which would allow patrons in their gaming rooms to smoke.

The development proposal, part of the $1.4m refurbishment, saw the removal of part of the roof, meaning that the space was no longer deemed ‘enclosed’, as more than 25 per cent of the room was open.

The development application read: “The effect of the proposed alterations is to make the whole of the sports bar/gaming room an ‘unenclosed public place’ to permit smoking.”

At the time, a spokesperson for the Woollahra Hotel told The Sydney Morning Herald: “The area will instead be a space that permits smoking for customers to use rather than have them standing on the footpath, which I don’t think would be a good outcome for our neighbours and passers-by.”

The proposal appears to have been approved in full.

In 2019, the Woollahra Hotel and Bistro Moncur were both sold by Public House Management Group (PHMG) to a member of Founder Mitchell Waugh’s family. PHMG had purchased the Hotel in 2015.

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