New operators hope to resurrect Rosati in Flinders Lane

When it opened just before Christmas in 1986, Rosati was a pioneer in Melbourne’s avant-garde restaurant scene.

One of the city’s first warehouse dining conversions, Rosati was a smash hit – selling, The Age reported at the time, more Moet than any other establishment in Australia.

The Flinders Lane restaurant’s vast interior and intricate mosaic tiled floors captured the era’s essence so well it served as the backdrop for Kylie Minogue’s I’ve Got to be Certain video clip.

Now, with its 1980s yuppie glamour long faded and its doors shut for many months, a well-known pub operator has lodged plans with Melbourne City Council for a makeover to cost upwards of $5 million.

In one of the city’s biggest recent hospitality rentals, operators Sand Hill Road will pay about $1 million a year to lease 101 Flinders Lane from the Zagame Group for 40 years.

The rental will see the Zagame family, which operates restaurants and gaming venues, abandon its 2012 plan to replace the building with a 12-storey hotel.

Instead, Sand Hill Road, which operates venues including Richmond’s Holliava and the Prahran Hotel, and will soon open the Terminus Hotel in Richmond after renovations, will develop the former restaurant into a sprawling four-level building pub and restaurant venue.

Designs, by Techne Architecture, which also did the neighbouring Tonka restaurant, will see the sprawling 840-person venue keep the former clothing factory’s distinctive sawtooth roof, built in 1938.

It will also add two new levels to the older 1907 rear of the building, where the now defunct Arthur’s Nightclub ran until recently.

Sand Hill Road wants to start construction early next year and open by the middle of the following year.

It also plans to reduce the venue’s operating hours, closing its rear entrance at 1am and reducing the liquor licence from 24 hours to 5am closing.

One of Sand Hill Road’s owners Matt Mullins used to drink at Rosati in the 1990s. Mr Mullins had always wanted to run a venue with Rosati’s ‘‘personality and charm’’, its street frontage and its licence. ‘‘It was just waiting to be rejuvenated,’’ he said.

Zelman Ainsworth, from agents CBRE, who negotiated the deal for the Zagame Group, said the rental deal was likely to drive up prices in that part of Flinders Lane and in nearby Collins Street.

‘‘No-one’s paying attention to the way this area is evolving, but this is one of the biggest hospitality deals [we’ve done] in the CBD,’’ he said.

Melbourne City Council planning spokesman Cr Ken Ong confirmed that plans for the Rosati site had been lodged, but said it was too early to discuss the council’s view on them.