Team behind King Clarence announces new South-East Asian grill

The crew will also open a “debaucherous and crazy” cocktail bar with Chartreuse slushies, fried chicken and live music until late.

Bentley Restaurant Group has built its name on fine dining. Three of its restaurants – Eleven Barrack, King Clarence and Watermans – hold two hats in the Good Food Guide. Now, they’re letting loose.

Next month, the Bentley team will open two venues side by side. There’s Ashe – a South-East Asian grill helmed by King Clarence executive chef Khanh Nguyen – and Vespertine, a late-night cocktail bar serving slushies and prawn toast, with live music, until 4am.

“We want [Vespertine] to be fun and loud, and debaucherous and crazy,” says Bentley co-founder and chef Brent Savage. “It’s going to be a place for the people.”

It’s the first bar Bentley Group has opened in its 20-year history. “We never really thought about opening one before, and then we walked into this site, and went ‘Wow, this would be a really great bar’,” says Savage.

The site is a heritage sandstone building at 350 George Street, on the corner of Angel Place, next to Merivale’s Ivy precinct. The group has taken over the entire 600-square-metre basement – previously home to restaurants Indu and Mercado – where the two venues will sit back-to-back.

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The two will have separate entrances but share a kitchen, and there’s also a secret passageway for ushering guests between the spaces.

Where King Clarence focuses on the cuisines of Japan, China and Korea, Ashe will look to the flavours of Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. It will also be a little more elevated. “The room is a little bit darker and moodier, and the food just a little bit more refined, without being too tricky,” says Savage.

The kitchen is also equipped with a clay oven for flatbread, plus a wood-fired grill for meat and seafood.

Dishes in development include a pho-spiced beef tendon – the tendon slow-braised, dehydrated and fried into a cracker, then filled with raw beef and topped with aromatic herbs and mung beans.

“It’s pho, but in crisp form,” says Savage. There’s also a crunchy rice salad, finished with kangaroo jerky. “We’ve always made our own charcuterie, and this is like that, only dried a bit further, and shaved over the top.”

Next door, “Vespertine” means “occurring in the evening” but it’s also a nod to one of the bar’s signature cocktails. The Vesper is co-owner and sommelier Nick Hildebrandt’s favourite martini, made with gin, vodka and Lillet Blanc.

The drink it’s more likely to become known for, however, is t