Two-hat Bentley Group restaurant loses star chef as menu makes surprise shift

Less than a year after Bentley Restaurant Group launched Watermans at Barangaroo, the two-hat restaurant has lost its star executive chef and shifted away from its broadly eastern Mediterranean food brief.

Chef Darryl Martin cited diverging business perspectives and family health challenges as reasons behind his departure, while the Watermans website now references the restaurant as modern Greek dining, with a new menu to match. Gone are Martin’s signature eastern Med dishes that found voice at now-closed Marrickville restaurant Barzaari before the chef was plucked to front the high-profile Barangaroo start-up.

Martin said his decision to leave was due to a “combination of personal and professional considerations”, including his wife’s recent health issues, which resulted in the diagnosis of a neurological disorder.

“This disorder has left my wife no longer able to work, drive or safely be left alone at times,” he said.

“This has put ... pressure on our financial stability, requiring me to look at additional revenue streams.

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“That, combined with different perspectives on direction and vision at Watermans, which I truly respect, I felt the time was right for me to pursue a different path. I have a great deal of respect for everyone involved and look back on my time there positively.”

Bentley Restaurant Group owners Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt described the decision to change the menu as a natural move. “There was already a heavy Greek influence on the menu, and moving to an all-Greek offering is not a huge change,” they said in a statement. “We see this as a positive evolution, and believe the new menu will be more focused, more elevated and Watermans will be a better restaurant for it.”

At the time of Watermans’ launch in late 2025, Savage and Hildebrandt signalled they were fans of Martin’s cooking at Barzaari. Hildebrandt said the combination of Martin’s flavours with Savage’s finesse and plating had created some early kitchen alchemy.

Savage and Hildebrandt are seasoned operators at Barangaroo, having previously operated the award-winning seafood restaurant Cirrus, just a few steps away from Watermans, from 2016 until their lease ran out in 2024.

As Bentley Restaurant Group has grown – it recently added Ashe, a contemporary South-East Asian grill, and bar sibling Vespertine, both in Sydney’s CBD – to a group that includes Eleven Barrack, King Clarence and Watermans.

The duo has also been quick to recalibrate the hospitality group. In 2025, they sold the plant-based Yellow to the restaurant’s long-serving head chef, Sander Nooij, and his business partner. Later in the year, they closed Monopole restaurant and stepped away from Brasserie 1930 at Capella Sydney hotel. In August, Bentley Restaurant + Bar closed.

The two described the new strategy as “pruning and preparing for growth” by focusing on restaurants they have full control over, and venues of a certain scale and size.

As for Watermans, Martin said he was grateful for the opportunity and proud of what the venue achieved, “particularly earning two hats and being recognised among Australia’s Top 100 restaurants”.

The chef said he was already working on consultancy projects and working towards “opportunities that won’t be considered until the new year”.

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