CHRIS CHEN; COLE BENNETTS; SASKIA WILSON; COURTESY OF PADDO INN; COURTESY OF ARIA/THE ARTISTAnna Solomon. Below: Christiane
Spangsberg’s work hanging in
Sydney’s Paddo Inn.
For ANNA SOLOMON, keeping things
en famille has meant enviable access
to some of our best local creative talent.
ByELLE MCCLUREworld away from the decorum of a
seven-course dining menu at Aria on
Sydney Harbour, Anna Solomon cut
her teeth in the Channel 10 news-
room as assistant chief-of-staff —
until it nearly broke her. “It was a
to work,” she says, and after a particu-
larly harrowing week, her boyfriend at the time found
her shut in the wardrobe, crying. “I knew I had to recon-
sider, and I’d always wanted to work with Dad.”
Working with Dad in this case meant stepping into an
illustrious family hospitality business, Solotel, founded
by Anna’s third-generation publican father, Bruce, in
1986; Anna’s brother, Elliot, is a company director.
Solomon’s father quickly tapped her keen design eye,
tasking her with bringing new life to Sydney watering
hole The Golden Sheaf, in Double Bay, in the wake of a
2008 fire. When the space, a collaboration with Tzannes
architects, received glowing praise in a review (“I’m
paraphrasing, but it was something like, ‘I want to live
and die here, drinking martinis’”), she became hooked.
Determined not to let it seem as though she was resting
on her laurels, Solomon relocated to New York to study
interior design at Parsons. “It was all well and good to
say, ‘This looks nice together,’ but I realised I
needed some formal training.”
Almost a decade later, she oversees the
aesthetic for some of Sydney’s and Brisbane’s
most-frequented drinking and dining spots as
director of design and development for the
group. Solomon takes pride in “beautiful spaces
that people can enjoy while they eat, drink, cele-
brate and spend time with family and friends”.
She has some 30 venues in her portfolio,
including Riverbar & Kitchen, Little Big House
and Aria in Brisbane, and Chiswick, North
Bondi Fish and Barangaroo House in Sydney.
As the first project she conceptualised and
led the design for from inception, Chiswick is
a personal favourite of Solomon’s. The restau-
rant is helmed by chef Tom Haynes and its
ethos — largely based on the farm-to-table
philosophy — was born of a partnership
between the Solotel team and Matt Moran
(Solotel has since merged with Moran’s restau-
rant and events business, MorSul). Its famed
Moran family lamb is regularly dished up in
the whitewashed dining room, which is
peppered with sprawling Persian rugs Solomon
sourced from family-run antique rug merchant Cadrys and overlooks a large
working garden. “In my mind [Chiswick] had to be like that certain someone’s
house you’re excited to be invited over to,” she says. “You know the food’s going to
be good, you know the company’s going to be good, you know the interior is really
beautiful, but they make you feel comfortable. You feel a bit special.”Family affair
It might come as a surprise
to learn that some of the
best art curation careers
are in hospitality, yet it
makes sense — the most
popular venues make for
prime visual real-estate.
Here, two women making
artists’ dreams come truePAINTING
THE
TOWN
158 HARPERSBAZAAR.COM.AU April 2019