This News Item featured in the January issue of Australian Bartender
Well known Sydney pub operators Jaime Wirth and James Miller are set to re-launch the iconic Forresters Hotel, once ‘home of the cheap steak’.
With a host of successful venues already running (Norfolk, Flinders, Carrington, Abercrombie and Duke) their latest launch is set for mid-February and will showcase their love of simple, good quality and inexpensive Italian fare. “We’ll be offering pizzas, pastas and a rotisserie what will be different each day,” said Wirth.
On top of the Italian styled foods, the bar will be serving up an Italiano inspired cocktail list with Luke Ashton (Duke) preparing the offering. Miller explained that they’ve covered a range of different food styles with their current venues and that they see a good Italian offering at a pub as something that is missing from the area. Forresters is their biggest hotel yet; equal to both the Norfolk and the Carrington in capacity.
“There’ll be a function-only space on the top level with stadium seating and a karaoke set-up,” Wirth explained when touring as then under construction building. The makeover is significant and each of the venue’s rooms will have its own flavour under the eye of design partner Michael Delaney-Korabelnikova.
Any more plans in the future? “We’re always looking,” Miller states, “and timing wise it’s usually just after we open a venue that we find another one that we like.” So perhaps February 2012 will have some more news on this ever growing hotel empire.