Coming Soon: Khanh Nguyen Is Bringing All-Day Dough Palace ANTARA 128 to the CBD

If you had to restrict your menu to just dough, and stuff you can make with dough, what would you serve? There's actually a fairly wide selection: bread, cakes, pastries, pizza and pasta. Everything a growing body needs.

This is the general inspiration behind a new restaurant coming to Melbourne's CBD, dubbed ANTARA 128. It's the brainchild of Executive Chef and co-owner of Sunda and Aru, Khanh Nguyen, and it's set to rise in late 2023.

While Nguyen's name alone is enough to get Melburnians excited, given the enormous splash that Sunda and Aru have made on Melbourne's dining scene — ANTARA 128 is also backed by the Halim Group, who oversaw the restoration of the Hotel Windsor.

Image: Sunda, supplied

"With ANTARA, we wanted to look to the dining scene of Europe, but done in a Melbourne way," Group Director Adi Halim says. "I've always liked the feel of European brasseries, places that open from early to late which you can drop in at throughout the day."

Details are still sketchy on ANTARA 128, but you can expect a mostly dough-fuelled menu. Fresh-baked bread and pastries each morning, strong coffee for commuters, soft mounds of pizza dough and ribbons of fresh-made pasta, with everything given a dusting of Nguyen's trademark spice. "Follow us as we slowly rise," reads the current website.

"We will be bringing the sensibility of that to this venture and depart from our norm, with the food having a European focus with an Asian touch," says Halim.

Image: Aru by Ari Hatzis

Keep an eye out for ANTARA 128 at 128 Exhibition Street in the CBD. We'll provide more details ahead of the launch.

Top image: Khanh Nguyen by Ryan Noreiks.