The latest addition to the Howard Smith Wharves precinct, ARC Dining and Wine Bar is now open at the New Farm end of the riverside hotspot. With a kitchen helmed by Alanna Sapwell and wines selected by Ian Trinkle, ARC feels like the sophisticated (but still fun) older sibling of the Wharves’ existing venues – Felons Brewing Co, Mr Percival’s, and Greca (with more to come).
Head Chef Alanna’s culinary offering is the venue’s major drawcard, focusing on less-popular species and cuts, as well as unexpected combinations that hero oft-forgotten ingredients; think goose prosciutto, pork head and heart terrine, and beeswax creamed leeks – curious?
“We feel really strongly about our use of ethically raised and sourced produce,” says Alanna. “We want the diners at ARC to have an elevated dining experience while still making it fun, approachable, fresh and satisfying,” she says.
Complimenting Alanna’s eye-opening menu is a 400-bottle wine list curated by Sommelier Ian Trinkle (who lead Aria to the Gourmet Traveller’s Wine List of the Year in 2018), with a focus on Australian and international wines with a strong expression of terroir.
While the dining room offers dishes like Spanish mackerel with zucchini, chilli, and native ginger and crab pasta with periwinkle (not the kind from grandma’s backard) and garden gremolata, the separate wine bar space offers smaller snackable dishes like pork and spent mandarin salumi with coffee crack, and goose rillettes with sour cherries and rye for those for whom the wine is the main event (us… sometimes).
While the spaces are separate, both have the stunning visual touch of Anna Spiro, the interiors master responsible for many of the Wharves’ venues awe-inspiring design. Both the dining room and wine bar feature a colourful, eclectic palette, mismatched (but somehow perfectly matched) artwork, and, the main event – a fig tree in the centre of the bar.
With experience at Brisbane’s Urbane, Aquitaine, and GOMA Restaurant as well as Sydney’s Saint Peter, Head Chef Alanna is clearly no stranger to award-winning, high profile venues – a status that ARC is undeniably going to ascend to.
