05/07/2026
Farewell Cornelia 🖤
It’s taken us a whole week to share moments from our final service because it was a very emotional day 😅
We poured everything we had into Cornelia with the belief that people would value what we had to offer - Fabio’s incredible food and a warm, local place to enjoy it. We can wholeheartedly say we achieved what we set out to do and we’re incredibly proud.
Choosing to close Cornelia was an extremely hard decision. As many can relate, running a small business is relentlessly difficult. The constant stress, rising costs, sacrificing weekends and holidays, late nights, and missing family events. It’s incredibly rewarding, but the cost is huge.
Cornelia was a very special place in a very special old Parnell building - but if you visited us, you’ll know we were limited by the space. We weren’t operating from a full kitchen, and over the years we explored different ways to expand or improve our setup, but nothing ever quite worked. On a busy service, we could empty our fridges in one night. We’d reached the limit of what we could do with the space we had, making it difficult to keep growing and evolving.
These weren’t the only reasons we decided to close, but if you’ve been wondering, “Why are they closing?” hopefully this gives a little insight. The time felt right. We’re so proud of what we built, and it’s time for new and exciting chapters.
THANK YOU. Thank you for dining with us, supporting us, sharing photos, telling your friends, and filling our little restaurant with warmth and laughter. Thank you for all the kind words, especially over the past month. We’re more grateful than we could ever put into words.
And the biggest thank you to all of our team members over the years, especially our incredible closing team - Milton, Ollie, Zoran and Anna. Such beautiful humans, we’re so lucky to have had you on our team. We couldn’t have done this without you!
Over the next few days, this page will transition into Fabio’s new private chef services, so watch this space!
Thank you again,
Lena x
