VENUE PROFILE
HOTEL SORRENTO, a family-owned pub with bay views on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, is embarking on a $30 million expansion that will double its footprint. Currently, the pub has five bars, a restaurant and 37 accommodation rooms. Now under construction are 58 accommodation suites, a pool and pool-side bar, a new
Expanding horizons for Hotel Sorrento With a major expansion well underway, expert help in the kitchen, and some Australian-made software is helping the venue as it scales up.
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signature restaurant, conference facilities, a wellness centre, and a 360-degree rooftop sundeck, all of which are expected to be completed by December 2023. According to Hotel Sorrento’s partnerships and marketing director Myles Pitt, whose family has owned the pub for the last 41 years, four levels of the pub are heritage listed, and the new works, which are one third of the way through, aim to blend the old with the new. A new Cantonese restaurant is being built in the old ballroom of the hotel, for instance, harking back to when the family took over at the pub when the cuisine being served was Chinese. “We’re going back in time and making it a Cantonese restaurant, think 1960s Hong Kong. You’ll get all the dishes you remember as a kid, just done our way with Hotel Sorrento flair,” Pitt says. “We not doing high-end dining as that’s not in our wheelhouse. We’re all about the vibe, culture and warmth. We want to see ourselves as extension of people’s living rooms, where they can come in for a beautiful meal with that warm pub feel.” A second new kitchen focusing on the wellness niche will have a totally different feel and will use produce from the local area, with a focus on organic. Pitt, who’s been working full time at the hotel for the past seven
