Bobby Chans, a 120-seat Southeast Asian restaurant, will open at 25 Martin Place in central Sydney this October, adding a second venue to the new Cabana Precinct alongside Cabana Bar and building out a day-to-night destination for the corporate district.

The venue comes from Tilley and Wills Hotels, the hospitality group whose Chief Executive Officer Nick Wills framed the concept as deliberate differentiation in a crowded category. The group did not want to create just another Southeast Asian restaurant, he says, but somewhere that feels like an escape.

"Bobby Chan's is relaxed, fun, and a little bit cheeky. A place where, for a few hours, you forget you're in the middle of Sydney," says Wills.

Executive Chef Brad Sloane leads the kitchen, with a menu drawing on Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. The format is share-style, a structure that tends to lift average check through multiple plate orders per table and suits the precinct's positioning as an "escape from the corporate hustle" for the surrounding office trade.

Menu engineering leans on recognisable formats carrying premium proteins and cross-cultural mashups: Skull Island prawn dumplings with crispy miso chilli oil; steamed chicken momos with piro achar and curry leaf; sesame prawn toast bao; babi guling-inspired pork with coconut salad and lime; and Bobby's king crab fried rice. The Skull Island branding points to a named-provenance sourcing play on the prawn side, while the king crab item gives the menu a high-anchor share dish.

Sloane says the team rejected armchair menu development in favour of on-the-ground research across the region.

"We wanted to get on the ground, eat the food, meet the people and learn the techniques behind the dishes," he says. "We've taken those influences and created something contemporary, approachable, and playful."

The bar program follows the same tropical-Asian brief, built around cocktails with clear ingredient stories: the Ube Colada, using ube cream liqueur, rum, coconut, lime and pineapple and inspired by Filipino desserts; a Thai Basil Gimlet; a Szechuan Margarita; and Bangkok Calling, built on lemongrass and fresh notes. The back bar extends into an extensive list of imported soju, sake and regional beers — a drinks mix that positions the venue for both full dining and precinct bar traffic flowing from Cabana next door.

The opening gives Tilley and Wills a flagship-scale footprint — 120 covers — in one of Sydney's most heavily trafficked commercial addresses, at a time when Martin Place landlords are pushing hospitality offerings to activate the precinct beyond office hours.

With Bobby Chans and Cabana Bar operating together at 25 Martin Place, the group will be watching whether the share-style menu and tropically weighted drinks list can convert daytime corporate traffic into evening trade when doors open in October.