The Meat and Wine Co., Palace Hotel

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​​​​​​​The Palace Hotel: A Heritage Building Reborn as an African-Inspired Steakhouse by The Meat & Wine Co.

Inspired by African cultures and traditions, The Meat & Wine Co restaurants in Australia are known for their unique designs that blend the spirit of Ubuntu with the surroundings of each location. The Palace Hotel, a magnificent heritage-listed building in the heart of the CBD, narrowly avoided demolition in 1972 and was transformed into a bank and office space by Alan Bond in 1988. After its interior was restored by Woods Bagot in 2016, the eastern-states restaurant chain gave the building a new lease of life as a premium steakhouse, offering a menu and décor that pay homage to South Africa.

Design Partnership faced the challenge of marrying the heritage-listed interior with the modern African-inspired aesthetic of the steakhouse. The grand heritage room of the restaurant, which seats 140 guests, retains the building's rich history and offers a unique dining experience, according to Callie van der Merwe - Founder of Design Partnership.

The challenge was to marry the heritage-listed Federation Free Classical building’s interior with the restaurant’s contemporary, African-inspired aesthetic.

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Professionals used in
The Meat and Wine Co., Palace Hotel

COOOP
COOOP
Interior Designers

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About the
Professional

Our studio specializes in design for behaviour.


We have done so for almost 30 years and in this time we have learned a tremendous amount about how people behave naturally and instinctively within these social environments. We have learned the hard way that in order to design successful venues, we needed to place predictive human behaviour at the heart of what we do. We capture succinctly how most people behave most of the time in order to design spaces for the most joy and ultimately the most success. This assists us in capturing the spirit of place.