Look inside historic Middlesbrough building to become restaurant

The Commerce House building on Exchange Square in the town centre is famous for the huge green dome that can be seen just alongside the A66 flyover as the road heads towards the Riverside stadium.

A former bank, it has also been the home of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and the Kalinka bar, but is now high-end luxury offices for a number of companies – but its two biggest secrets lie below ground level and then at the very top under the dome.

Enjoy a full subscriber experience with The Echo

Up the stairs and into the future at Commerce House (Image: Newsquest)

The Northern Echo went to see what has been happening just a few yards from the planned Stack development of bars and stages under the A66.

The most striking tenant of Commerce House will be The Muddler – a  100-seater restaurant and cocktail bar, with a private dining area inside that green dome and an astonishing standalone mezzanine level built inside the old banking hall, to protect stunning ceiling mouldings and frieze around the whole room.

The plaster mouldings in the main hall (Image: Newsquest)

The Muddler currently has a restaurant and cocktail bar on Newcastle’s Grey Street, opposite the Theatre Royal and visitors can expect the same pan-Asian-inspired cuisine at the new Middlesbrough branch.

The kitchen for the new Muddler will be downstairs among the old safes and strongroom, with some meals being taken right up under the roof which private dining customers only.

Inside the dome (Image: Newsquest)

As The Echo found, the whole place up there has been stripped back to the original woodwork, with fireplaces still visible in some of the smaller rooms and amazing views  through porthole windows over the town and the railway station redevelopment.

A porthole view of the railway station development (Image: Newsquest)

Downstairs, the old bank strongroom has dozens of shelves for storage behind massive steel doors, and then within that space there are three more six-foot Chubb safes.

This space could be used for food prep, with a new kitchen installed in one of the adjoining rooms.

The main door into the strongroom (Image: Newsquest)

As the huge safe door was opened so many times, this is what happened to the wall behind… (Image: Newsquest)

Safe and secure (Image: Newsquest)

The amount of work involved is breathtaking, but Neill Winch, CEO of Danieli Group which owns The Muddler brand, told us recently about the project: “When we saw the investment that has been made in Middlesbrough’s Historic Quarter and the real steps that have been taken to revitalise the area, we knew this was a great location for us.

Inside the strongroom (Image: Newsquest)

Safes inside the strongroom (Image: Newsquest)

“It fits perfectly with The Muddler brand and we hope that we will be something very different to the town in terms of both the food we offer and the high quality of the setting.”