Inside Andrew McConnell’s 25-day turnaround of the iconic Stokehouse

In an exclusive sit-down interview, the prolific restaurateur talks about the busiest period of his career, including overhauling and opening two venues in 25 days, and why he had to dive back into tricky St Kilda.

October 28, 2026

In three days, one of Australia’s most recognised restaurants, the Stokehouse, will reopen under the new ownership of Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann after a lightning-paced revamp.

The changes to the main dining room upstairs at the St Kilda foreshore restaurant will be significant. “The decor will be much softer and warmer, and it will be more relaxed,” McConnell says.

The menu has also been rewritten to be less about fine dining, “more about being an elevated beach house” with a spotlight on seafood, says McConnell, who only took over the two-storey landmark 22 days ago.

Meanwhile, the downstairs dining room relaunched last weekend after its own blitz renovation with a new name, Marea Beach House & Bar, and a new menu and overhauled interior.

This comes just three months after McConnell and McGann launched one of this year’s most significant restaurant openings, Cote Basque in Crossley Street in the city.

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This high-octane burst of openings – the busiest in McConnell’s career – has cemented him as Australia’s largest chef-owner, with 12 restaurants and six retail outlets across Melbourne and Brisbane, ranging from a pub in Fitzroy to posh butcher shops and the two-hatted Gimlet. Alessandro Pavoni, chef and co-owner of Maestro Hospitality, currently runs nine venues in Sydney and Noosa including a’Mare and Ormeggio at the Spit.

“There is no one else who comes close to Andrew in terms of quality and quantity of restaurants, with him being both chef and operator,” says Rinaldo Di Stasio, owner of Di Stasio Città and Di Stasio Carlton.

“It’s busy,” laughs McConnell in his trademark understated manner.

In a spotless chef’s uniform, he is cruising around the Marea dining room – wall to wall sandy tones, woven rugs and rough-hewn wooden sculptures – chatting to diners with a calm smile on his face.

“But I’m so happy. I feel energised,” he says. “If I get stressed, I never let it show, I internalise it.”

“I guess I feed off a challenge.”

Andrew McConnell

He says the recipe for his success is “consistency and quality” and having a crack team around him: each of his venues has its own head chef, and he has a team of three development chefs, including Jacqui Challinor (ex-Nomad and Reine & La Rue) helping him craft menus.

“I’ve learned through many years of trial and error how to build the right systems around me to be successful. We also have a service culture that is authentic, warm and caring – not robotic, not just empty words.”

The newly appointed chef at Marea is Davy Dai, who has worked with McConnell for seven years, most recently as head chef at Marion Wine Bar in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. Dai was a finalist for this year’s Young Chef of the Year prize in The Age Good Food Guide.

McConnell describes the food at Marea as reflecting the beachside culture of southern Europe.

“I want people to come from a towel on the beach to the restaurant for lunch, then back to the beach, and maybe back again to the bar later. That’s what I want to do when I got somewhere that is this close to the sea.”

The Jacka Boulevard-level space has been transformed by design firm ACME, with pieces from friend and artist Magnus Reid who, with the help of a chainsaw, made 10 wood sculptures, along with paintings and copper artwork, all in two weeks.

“We wanted Marea to feel like a place that’s been here forever, somewhere comfortable and full of character,” says McGann. “Working with Magnus was a really personal part of that. His work has such natural, raw quality. Nothing feels too perfect or precious.”

A lot of the “simple food, made for sharing” is touched by a wood-grill.

“There’s something about cooking over fire that feels right here,” says McConnell. Prawns with smoked butter and bisque sauce, whole flounder or snapper, and Berkshire pork chop with fermented chilli are on the opening menu.

“Fish and chips have long been part of the Stokehouse story, and Marea keeps that alive with classic local flathead and chips, alongside a beach shack burger.”

Stokehouse was owned for 36 years by the van Haandel family. Hugh van Haandel, the son of former owner Frank van Haandel, will stay on at the venue as general manager, McConnell says.

McConnell has known Frank van Haandel for more than 20 years, having been employed as head chef at the family’s restaurant Circa at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda in the mid-2000s. “Frank has taught me a lot; he has been a mentor, a business partner and a friend.”

When he was offered the chance to buy the leasehold of the property from van Haandel, it was intuition that told McConnell he must do it. That and the fact it is 3½ metres from the beach.

He admits to letting intuition guide him on all the menus he writes too, and he still does oversee all of them in his venues.

When it reopens on Saturday, the upstairs Stokehouse menu will spotlight seafood, like a crab salad, spaghetti vongole and flounder with kombu butter. The kitchen will also bring back some “Stokehouse classics”, including King George whiting with hand-cut chips, whole grilled lobster with tarragon butter and dry-aged Gippsland rib-eye.

The former executive chef at Stokehouse, Jason Staudt, departed the venue several weeks ago, with his replacement to be announced soon. Stokehouse upstairs will trade through summer before closing again in winter for another larger renovation and refit, McConnell says.

These may be the 11th and 12th restaurants he has opened, “but it never gets easier”. That’s especially true in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis in a suburb which has suffered from years of high commercial vacancies. McConnell has bitten off a lot.

“I guess I feed off a challenge.”

Marea open for lunch and dinner daily

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