Nathen Doyle and Cameron Earl have spent the past two years readying their new restaurant. They have a firm concept, a name and a newly renovated space – but they have no idea what the food will be or who will be cooking it.

Residence – a new 60-seat day-to-night venue the duo will launch at Melbourne University’s soon-to-reopen Potter Museum of Art in early June – will see a different head chef lead the kitchen each year.

“It’s almost like a TV series,” says Earl, front-of-house manager at Carlton Wine Room. “Season one is this chef, and then season two is the next. You get excited about that person, excited about what they create, and excited about moving onto the next season.”

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The hunt is currently on for the inaugural head chef, and the duo is preferably looking for “a person with the aspiration to stamp their name on something,” says Doyle, who owns Sunhands, Heartattack and Vine and Wide Open Road. “In an ideal world, it’s somebody who hasn’t had the opportunity [to lead a kitchen] before,” adds Earl.

The only real criteria? “We want the food to be different. There’s no point in us putting forward this opportunity, and then each year it’s modern Australian,” Earl says.

While there’s a question mark around the food, the pair are firm on the vibe and experience they want to create. The day-to-night venue will slowly shift from a casual to slightly formal space as the day progresses. In the mornings, they envision uni students, faculty and museum visitors sitting around a communal table by the espresso bar with a pastry and coffee. By evening, the espresso bar will have turned into a private dining room and table service dinner will be in full swing.

They’re not relying on the residency program to be the only drawcard, and say the venue will be focused on high-quality service and hospitality. They’re going for a “Marion-esque” vibe with “really intelligent service and a strong wine list that you can dive as far into as you’d like,” says Earl.

In addition to helping someone learn to lead a kitchen, they aim to draw back the curtain and provide insight into what it’s like to build, open and run a restaurant. They have a videographer on retainer and plan to highlight the head chef with a Youtube series and be “really honest about the fact that being a chef nowadays isn’t just about cooking anymore,” says Earl.

A restaurant with a residency program is a concept that has been “bubbling around” in Earl’s head for years since he saw Brooklyn restaurant kings Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo do a similar program at their restaurant Frankies 457 Spuntino. “They were getting chefs from around the world to come in and take it over. There was something about that creative idea that I just couldn’t stop thinking about.”

The concept lined up perfectly with the duo’s joint dream of having a business where they’re able to teach and support the next generation of hospitality lifers.

Residence will open at Potter Museum of Art on the Corner Swanston Street and Masson Road, Parkville, in early June.