Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann are at it again.

Just weeks after opening a restaurant in Brisbane, the duo behind Trader House – which has some of the city’s best restaurants including Obama-approved Gilmet, Cutler & Co and Supernormal – announced they will take over the Becco space at 25 Crossley Street in the CBD, where they’ll open a new yet-to-be-named restaurant in 2025.

“This is one of the most important heritage restaurant sites in the city,” McConnell says of the building that was home to Pellegrini’s Tavola Freddo Cantina from 1954 until Becco opened in 1996. “We are excited to preserve and continue this legacy whilst bringing new energy to the space.”

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The duo will work with Sydney studio Acme (also behind Gimlet and Trader House’s Apollo Inn) on the design for the new restaurant. In the meantime, they’ll open a temporary outpost of Morning Market, the European-style grocery-cafe-bakery the couple launched during the pandemic.

Restaurateur Chris Lucas, of Chin Chin and the upcoming Tombo Den, was initially supposed to take over the space once Becco’s lease ended in 2021. The deal was signed in 2019, but Lucas never activated the space.