Editorial styling: Nina George + Elizabeth Bird. Photo: Jessie Prince.Ever since THE J.AR OFFICE first came onto my radar in October 2023, I couldn’t look away. Brisbane’s Jared Webb has a kind of creative genius that’s hard to explain, which is saying something for someone who makes a living doing just that. He combines seemingly unrelated genres, eras, references and details and produces something that exceeds the sum of its parts—something we now lazily refer to as ‘vibe’, because the real meaning requires a long conversation and maybe a glass of wine. It takes creativity, vision, an appetite for risk, and some kind of energy to pull off project after project at this level. Marlowe is on his fourth team with The Fanda Group.
Where there are other places—Central, Norte, Sueno—international cuisine heroes, Marlowe plants his flag in a very personal place: a reimagining of an Australian bistro, located inside a heritage-listed Art Deco building in Brisbane’s CBD.
The concept conveys a certain glamor of the power lunches of the ’80s and ’90s—that era when being seen at the right table with the right people was your form of social currency. Webb describes it as“a refined balance of ’80s and ’90s nostalgia versus pre-war design”—and you feel that way as soon as you walk in. Red marmoleum floors against crisp white tablecloths, polished chrome lighting, collected silverware, and a menu that suggests ‘daggy’ classics—smoked trout on hashbrowns, cheddar scones with chicken pâté, coral trout Wellington. Nostalgic without being sentimental, comfort without being sentimental.
What makes Marlowe so strange, however, is not the idea – it’s execution under pressure. The tight overlay of heritage meant that J.AR OFFICE almost didn’t have the license to touch the original fabric of the building. The interior walls, horsehair plaster ceiling, windows and door frames all remain intact. The first floor still connects to the ground. The former toilets became wine storage and adjacent booth seating. Then there’s the heritage-listed air-raid shelter in the basement—formerly a tobacco and cigar store, the previous tenant’s hand-painted signs still intact. I mean, come on!
Operating on two levels, 22 rooms and a total of nine different dining areas (each very intimate with a capacity of ten people), J.AR OFFICE has perfectly planned the operational needs of a full-scale restaurant without compromising the homely character of the building.
As Webb puts it,“The existing bones and fabric of the building dictate the functionality of the space; in other projects, it’s been the other way around.”That transformation is the key to understanding what Marlowe really is. This is not a restaurant that was designed and built into the building. The structure came first—always—and all design decisions followed from that fact. That philosophy extends to the dining experience there, too. Webb talks about moving the feeling of“we are having dinner at a friend’s house”-and shows in detail: a large kitchen table placed in front of the pass, lighting trained entirely in food and production instead of the interior, food that arrives under a silver cloche. Home design is not only decorative, but also functional.
The material palette reflects this intensity. Taken from Le Corbusier’s Architectural Polychromy of 1931—the same year the building was built, which is my favorite detail—the sky blue, butter cream and crimson anchor are a combination of walnut planks, polished chrome, and jute marmoleum cut into a tile format, referencing the linoleum floor in your grandmother’s kitchen. Custom lighting on chrome posts avoids any penetration of the horsehair plaster ceiling. Even the acoustic treatment is rooted in the concept of the material: the carpeting under the dining areas, the marmoleum pores that reflect the shape of the table above you. Every decision has a reason. Nothing is arbitrary.
Brisbane has no shortage of shiny new places built from scratch and dressed up to feel historic. Marlowe actually has one—and Jared Webb has had the wit, patience and creative conviction to let it speak. If this is what an Australian bistro looks like now, I thought it was normal.
[Images courtesy of J.AR OFFICE. Editorial styling by Nina George + Elizabeth Bird. Photography by Jessie Prince.]