Coming Soon: Martin Benn and Vicki Wild’s Four New Melbourne Venues Are for Members Only

“If I had a dollar for everybody that asked me to open a restaurant, I wouldn’t need to work anymore,” chef Martin Benn tells Broadsheet. “But it’s not what I want to do. I want to be different. I need to change, and I need to give people opportunities.”

Benn and his partner, front-of-house pro Vicki Wild, are best known for their restaurant Sepia. The Sydney fine diner was one of the best restaurants Australia has ever produced, earning spot number 84 in the 2015 World’s 50 Best Restaurants rankings. They closed it in 2018 and relocated to Melbourne to open Society with Chris Lucas. The duo departed the project in 2021, five days after it opened, and have been in high demand ever since – collaborating with the NGV and the Australian Open, but never opening a permanent space. Now they’re joining private members’ club 67 Pall Mall as managing culinary partners and will oversee the opening and operations of the club’s dining spaces at 85 Spring Street.

The London-founded club has locations in London, Singapore, Verbier and Hong Kong, and is expanding to Bordeaux and Melbourne (where it already has 675 members) in mid-2026. An annual membership is currently $2,300 per year with a $1,500 one-off joining fee; when the club opens, the fees will increase to $4,500 per year with a $3,500 joining fee. It positions itself as being “founded by wine lovers, for wine lovers” and, as Benn says, “it’s not the regular old stuffy club, it’s a bit more diverse. It appeals to all ages – wine doesn’t just appeal to old men.”

Benn and Wild have been working with 67 Pall Mall for about a year and are preparing four separate dining spaces, each with a distinct food offering, for the Melbourne launch. “It’s not just another restaurant. It’s a different dimension to Melbourne’s hospitality landscape,” says Benn.

On level 14, there will be a club lounge with a small dining area. Wild says there’ll be some dishes from 67 Pall Mall’s other clubs, but the menu will have more of a wine bar feeling with wine-friendly and accessible food like steak sandwiches and charcuterie plates. Level 15 will house an 80-seat “restaurant-centric” space with two private dining rooms; on level 16, you’ll find a champagne lounge with an oyster and seafood bar; and up further there’ll be a rooftop cocktail bar that specialises in whiskies.

Rather than serving the fine-dining dishes Benn’s known for, the restaurant on level 15 will have share-style dishes and a local feel. “We’re not going to pretend we’re in Europe,” says Wild. “We’re going to embrace a very Melbourne-centric menu, a very Australian menu.” Benn adds there’s scope for him to design fine-dining-style menus for special events and wine dinners, however. With 1000 wines available by the glass, the menu will be extensive and diverse enough to suit a wide range of drops.

“It’ll have my accent on the food but, the way I look at this is, it’s not really just about myself or Vicki, it’s more about the club,” says Benn.

For the duo, the main appeal of joining 67 Pall Mall is the opportunity to train and mentor hospitality talent. “[It will be] a place where not only do people go to learn about wine, but that chefs can also go to learn about food, and food and wine together,” Benn says. He wants to train people “from very simple things like how to cook a burger, right through to the fine-dining aspect of what I’ve done”.

“We don’t want to do another restaurant ourselves, and this is a great opportunity – without sounding wanky – to give back and be able to provide a really good training foundation for the industry. Because, to be honest with you, the industry doesn’t have it anymore. There aren’t any great training grounds,” says Wild.

Benn says the consuming nature of running your own venue has also kept the pair from launching a new restaurant. “If I didn’t want to have my life anymore, I’d go open a restaurant,” says Benn. Though he insists he’ll be a constant presence at the club. “Mentoring is not just about popping in – it’s more about being there … I don’t feel satisfied in myself if I’m not there.”

67 Pall Mall is expected to open at 85 Spring Street, Melbourne, in mid-2026.

67pallmall.com