Sydney is getting a new fine dining restaurant atop the Museum of Contemporary Art, replacing the long-loved MCA Cafe while keeping those pristine harbour views.
For years, the rooftop MCA Cafe has made up for its by-the-numbers grab-and-go food with a delectable perspective of Sydney Harbour, its widescreen vista taking in the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. It’s a breathtaking view and a great way for locals to remind themselves of our city’s unmatched beauty.
Now the beloved rooftop cafe is on its way out, being replaced in just a few months by a new fine dining concept from Melbourne-based The Big Group.
The hospitality collective, best known for catering big-ticket events like Grand Prix, Melbourne Cup and the Australian Open, has already transformed the museum’s ground-floor cafe with a voguish sustainable menu, as well as the museum’s two big event spaces—The Quayside Room and Harbourside Room.
Canvas will be the group’s most ambitious play to date, giving the MCA an ostensibly world-class kitchen that’ll host regular chef residences as well as international culinary talents who want to tinker around with new ideas.
Dynamic museum restaurants have been done successfully before. The now-closed In Situ, which ran out of San Francisco’s modern art museum, took a unique approach with a gallery-like menu displaying masterful signature dishes from world-famous chefs. Canvas should be a similarly mishmash of ideas once the kitchen starts to rotate through chefs.
The first chef for Canvas will be Josh Raine, former chef for one of Sydney’s foremost fine dining experiences, Tetsuya’s.
