Coming Soon: One of Australia’s Top Cantonese Restaurants to Open at Manly Wharf

Louis Tikaram is an enthusiastic bloke. He’s excited about South Coast oysters and tuna caught off Ulladulla. He’s excited about a recent trip to Hong Kong, where he ate at the decorated Mott 32 several times. But the chef really comes alive when he starts talking about his new Chinese-style woodfired oven, for roasting Peking duck.

“It’s actually like a pizza oven,” he says. “It’s built-in, it’s got a door, it’s got hooks up above for the ducks and it runs at about 500 degrees.”

These topics are on the table because Tikaram is two months from opening Cantonese restaurant Stanley in Manly. Yes, the same Stanley that’s been winning hearts at Brisbane’s Howard Smith Wharves since 2019 with an extensive menu of live seafood, dim sum and Chinese barbeque dishes.

Tikaram, who has Chinese Fijian heritage and grew up in Mullumbimby, knows Sydney well. He spent a decade here, apprenticing at influential restaurant Longrain before going on to cook at Bentley and Tetsuya’s. He left to launch the enormously successful EP & LP in West Hollywood for fellow Aussies Grant Smillie and Davis Combes.

Brisbane’s up-and-coming energy lured him back home in 2019. And Howard Smith Wharves, recently redeveloped with a slick new hotel, brewery and multiple restaurants, was the place to be. It was as transformative for Brisbane’s CBD as Wunderlich Lane has been for Redfern.

Which brings us back to Sydney. Artemus Group, the developer behind Howard Smith Wharves, is part-way through repeating the trick at Manly Wharf. Felons Brewing, the same brand installed in Brisbane, arrived here in 2024. Stanley will join in September, filling the hole Queen Chow left when it closed last year.

But if you’ve eaten at the original Stanley, don’t expect an exact copy. If anything, Sydney’s built-in woodfired oven is an upgrade of Brisbane’s regular combi ovens. “That’s right in the middle of the restaurant,” Tikaram says. “I think it’s just great. The ducks take us five days to prepare. So to have them on show, just being out the back being cooked, makes it pretty special.” To up the theatre further, the ducks will be carved tableside. 

Sydney will also outshine Brisbane’s single back-of-house seafood tank with at least three tanks separating the kitchen from the dining room, in that classic Cantonese style. The team will keep them stocked with pippies, lobster, abalone, blue swimmer crabs and more. While Queensland has its own bounty of seafood, Tikaram is excited to once again get his hands on NSW-specific catches like the aforementioned oysters and tuna.

Otherwise, expect a similar ambience and basic menu structure featuring roasted meats, stir-fries, dumplings and noodles, plus a few extra dishes not seen before. With everything mostly dialled in, Tikaram’s main concern now is getting the locals on-side. His childhood in and around Byron Bay showed him that beach-going tourists can’t carry a restaurant through winter – it needs local support too.

“You need to look after the locals,” he says. “We’re already brainstorming, you know, do we give them a keychain, or do we give them a special email address? In the summertime when it’s really busy, we still want to make sure that the locals are getting the tables.”

Stanley will open at Manly Wharf in September. Bookings are open now.