These Australian restaurants show that when one door closes, another opens – often on a bigger and brighter future.

“A change is as good as a holiday and I wanted to bring something a bit more relaxed, new and exciting to Geelong,” says Victorian chef and restaurateur Aaron Turner. “We’d been doing Igni for eight or nine years and I guess you could say we had a bit of burnout.” Both Turner and his business partner, Jo Smith, have young kids and wanted to spend more time with their families. “The restaurant was very tied to my style of cooking, it really relied on me being there,” he says. “It relied on Jo’s service, too.” The pair didn’t want to give up doing what they loved – making great food with care and heart – but it was time for quality of life to come first.

Last year, Igni closed its doors for the last time before reopening as a colourful and comparatively casual Thai barbecue joint, Songbird (below). Chef Nathan Lancaster, who learnt the fire-focused cooking of Northern Thailand at the now-shuttered Hawker Fare in San Francisco, heads up the kitchen and the food matches his experience: khao soi, satay beef short ribs, chicken with lemongrass. “People are really loving the fried egg salad, or yum kai dao,” says Turner, describing the zinging dish of fried egg, fresh tomato, Chinese celery and sweet chilli sauce, speckled with a confetti of crispy shallot, ginger and herbs. Songbird isn’t just the right fit for Turner and Smith but also for their customers.

Image credit: Julian Kingma

The hospitality industry is nimble by necessity. Veganism growing in popularity? Enter menus full of mushroom XO and cashew cheese. Belts tightening? Happy hours and well-priced lunch set menus for all. “Hospitality businesses are incredibly dynamic. Staff costs, food costs fluctuate every single day,” says restaurateur Themis Chryssidis, who recently transformed his elevated Adelaide restaurant, Eleven, into light, bright and inviting Italian spot Roma, labelled a restaurant, deli and piazza. “We’re built to be quite agile.”

Thi Le and Jia-Yen Lee, the team behind Melbourne restaurant Anchovy, gave almost everything a go in the past few years, including moving to the building next door, reinventing as a set-menu-only offering and even transplanting, briefly, to a winery in Bendigo. None of these transformations was quite right and in June 2022, Le says, “We made the decision to put Anchovy into hibernation mode.” After a well-earned break, the eatery has now resettled into its original spot in Richmond, with a menu described as Viet Kieu – “The food of a Vietnamese Australian who is acculturated within Australia,” says Lee. Noodles play a big part, as do herb and lettuce wraps, and the menu will evolve constantly to focus on the cuisine of different regions in Vietnam. 

Lee says that in some ways moving Anchovy back to its old premises, when the pair had so many grand plans, felt difficult at first. But they’re cooking up big new ideas, including an upcoming residency in Tasmania – both a change and a holiday. “We like to say that Anchovy went on a gap year and has come back to its childhood bedroom while it saves up money to do other things,” says Lee, laughing.

Below, discover other restaurants reinventing themselves around Australia.