Alex Brinis and Greg Leaver of Al Lupo
Alex Brinis and Greg Leaver of Al Lupo
When publicans open a venue, they often talk about wanting to create somewhere that feels like home. This summer, Greg Leaver and Alex Brinis – hospitality journeymen and residents of Leighton Beach – will take this sentiment a little further than most when they (finally) open Al Lupo, a beautiful neighbourhood bar in their coastal pocket of North Fremantle.
Then again, messieurs Leaver and Brinis have form when it comes to opening places that feel instantly warm and comfortable: we have Leaver to thank for Freo good-time joints Strange Company and Ronnie Nights, while Italian ex-pat Brinis counts State Buildings and Leighton cafe/provedore MRKT Space as prior convictions. For their new joint project, the duo are pooling their diverse experience to create something equally fluid.
“There’s no real theme to what we’re doing,” says Leaver. “We just wanted to have a really classic bar with really nice food near the beach. I guess that’s a pretty broad but simple concept.”
While Al Lupo’s premise might be “simple”, its execution is anything but. Leaver’s long-time collaborator Michael Patroni of Space Agency has turned in an open, typically striking design that maximises the bar’s coastal location. Expansive windows wrapping around the ground floor building bring the outside in. A handsome bar topped with Greek marble has sightlines out to the Indian Ocean. The front of Al Lupo is given over to a sunken sunroom that has “best seats in the house” written all over it. Beautiful wood features and carpentry is everywhere.
There’ll be cocktails, naturally. There’ll be beer. And wine (half the bottles will be European, the other half will be Australian). Chef Carlos Olivari has been tasked with writing a menu of small plates that – as you’d expect – leans into seafood. It’ll be a menu, says Leaver, that’s as flexible as people’s plans and run from snacks at the bar to a shared meal between friends. Although the 120-person bar will initially open from midday and serve till late, the kitchen – and perhaps the al fresco seating area – may be called on to bolster the breakfast offering of sister venue MRKT Space next door. Playing nicely with neighbours is a key part of Al Lupo’s thinking.
“It’s a five-minute walk to the train and then straight across the tracks is North Freo,” says Brinis. “We see this as a bit of an addition to what’s happening in North Fremantle with Propeller, Piggy’s, Mrs Brown and Habitue. I feel like we’re a part of that whole precinct.”
Al Lupo (25 Leighton Beach Boulevard, North Fremantle) is due to open in December.
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