Solotel and MorSol to merge under Solotel brand

Hospitality veterans Bruce Solomon and Matt Moran are merging their Solotel and MorSol businesses under the Solotel brand, bringing under one umbrella some of Australia’s leading bars and restaurants, according to a media report.

The two businesses will merge under the Solotel title at the start of the new financial year, said a report in hoteling industry news website www.theshout.com.au, though it didn't mention financial details of the deal.

Currently, Solotel has a portfolio of 20 hospitality venues in Sydney and Brisbane, including the Opera Bar and The Sheaf hotel; while MorSol operates some of the best restaurants in Australia, including the two-hatted ARIA Sydney, ARIA Brisbane, CHISWICK Woollahra and CHISWICK at the Gallery.

Following the merger, Matt Moran will continue to manage the ARIA and CHISWICK restaurants – the flagship restaurants of the business. 

After the deal, Solotel's staff will number around 1500. 

Moran said the merger would open up new opportunities for the staff.

“It’s going to give lots of opportunities to lots of people. If a young chef starts in a pub one day he might have [the] ambition to be in a fine dining restaurant and vice versa – I might have a sous chef in ARIA who might want to run his own pub,” he said.

Solomon and Moran's business partnership goes back to 2000 when Solomon turned the Paddington Inn into a gastropub, with a focus on the food offering. 

Both Solomon and Moran believe that by merging the businesses, they are creating one of the most dynamic hospitality groups in the country, the report added.

The Paddington Inn will be relaunched in August, opening as a new restaurant and front bar, followed by the renovation of The Edinburgh Castle Hotel in Sydney’s CBD later this year.

Solotel have also won the bid for The Australian Hotel in the new Central Park residential and entertainment precinct on the CBD’s fringe. Both The Australian Hotel and Solotel’s three-level prestige venue in Sydney's Barangaroo will open in 2018. The Barangaroo venue will feature a bar on the ground floor, a restaurant on the first floor and a rooftop bar.