The former head chef of Aria, Simon Sandall, has 150 staff including waiters and chefs on deck staffing its on-site museum restaurant, Simara, coffee shop, Folded, its level three The Green Bar, and a mobile cart.
“We are expecting a tsunami. It’s going to be a fun day,” he says. “My mission is to go back to good old-fashioned hospitality, a smile on the face and a big welcome. Hospitality got a little bit lost over the last few years. I want to bring warmth.”
Simon Sandall is running the Powerhouse’s restaurant and cafe.Audrey Richardson
Simara is offering a wood-fire grill, cooked over redgum wood. In line with the green theme, its Green Bar, part of the Level 3 bespoke cinema, is offering green toffee apples and green popcorn with a dill pickle flavour and soft-serve ice-cream, and at the cafe a monster jaffle filled with spaghetti and cheese for the kids.
“I was at Aria for the controversies at Circular Quay … that whole Toaster building is now iconic and the Powerhouse will be an icon,100 per cent.”