New restaurant to open at Heritage House in Orange

Prior to this announcement, the building was home to popular Orange eatery, Zona Kitchen Bar Events which shut its door in November 2022.

Now, the building will be brought back to life in the way of Italian Restaurant, La Milano.

Co-owners Maninder Singh and Rubandeep Singh are excited to take charge of their first restaurant, with the former noting it was an ideal landing spot.

"It's not next to the road, it's a heritage building so it's the perfect location for families to come and have good, quality time here," he said.

"We used to work nearby and when we had dinner about a year-and-a-half ago and we just loved this building. I was keeping an eye on this one for a long time."

So when he walked by one day to see the building was up for lease, he jumped at the opportunity.

"Because Zona had such high expectations here before and the people of Orange loved it, we wanted to make sure we didn't let this building and the reputation down," he added.

"We knew what the expectations were from local people. The hospitality industry in Orange is very different to Sydney. We know that we have to do the right thing for the people of Orange."

The hope is to open towards the end of June or start of July. Once up and running, they will be catering for dinner seven days a week and lunch on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

So why did the pair choose an Italian restaurant? Well, for one thing they have experience working with that type of food, but they also saw a gap in the market.

"People need to have more food options," Maninder Singh added.

Although they plan on keeping the interior design predominantly the same as it was before, the food and drinks menu will be vastly different.

"There's going to be a lot more options for drinks and wine and we're going to have cocktails that are focusing on Italian cuisine," the co-owner added.

One example of this - a carbonara flavoured cocktail.

With homemade pastas and pizzas, the plan is for the restaurant to cater to vegans, vegetarians lovers of meat and everyone in-between.

Mr Singh also noted they had been "lucky" in terms of recruiting staff, an issue noted by Zona management as a reason for its closure seven months ago.

"We have enough chefs and front of house staff and all of them have experience," he said.

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