The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) will finally reopen in Fed Square early next year, after an all-encompassing $40 million renovation – and it’ll have a new in-house restaurant and wine bar helmed by celebrity chef Karen Martini.

The acclaimed Melbourne restaurateur, cookbook author and TV presenter also owns St Kilda pizzeria Mr Wolf with her partner Michael Sapountsis, and the couple headed up Melbourne Wine Room before it closed in 2011.

At Hero – a casual, contemporary addition to the Fed Square precinct – you can expect dining from breakfast all the way through to the late evening, seven days a week. And, under the direction of executive chef Diego Rosales (former head pastry chef at Sydney’s The Grounds of Alexandria), local produce will take pride of the place on the menu – after a year that’s hit Victorian producers hard.

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For the fit-out, local firm Chris Connell Design (Agostino, Bar Carolina) is channelling the 1967 French-Italian film Playtime. Splashes of colour will contrast against against greys and whites, and there’ll be terrazzo concrete, brushed stainless steel and perforated wall panelling.

Behind the venue is Martini’s new hospitality and events group, Hospitality M, a collaboration with Michael Gebran, who’s worked with the Sydney Opera House and The Grounds of Alexandria. Hospitality M will also take charge of ACMI’s event spaces, a new cinema-adjacent snack bar, and a coffee cart at the Flinders Street entrance.

When ACMI reopens, the screen-culture hub will have undergone a complete digital transformation. The experience will include a free take-home device that lets visitors “tap and collect” objects across more than 200 touchpoints and revisit them later.

Hero will open at ACMI in early 2021.

heromelbourne.com