Melbourne, 2008.

On reckonings, the birth of the "group", and ghosts of restaurants past.

I feel increasingly like I’m living through a type of reckoning. Perhaps it’s the natural passage of time, perhaps a culmination of paths chosen and decisions made, but it feels like my life is being audited. Who am I, and what am I doing? What’s your value, and what is the value of your actions? I feel I’m exclusively met with dead ends and distractions, the occasional win, compounded by two swift losses. It’s been an exhausting year.

The closure of my business, so key to my sense of self and how I value my contribution to the community, has really stripped the colour from my days. I see it in the faces of others, too; beloved restaurants, cafes and bars closing on a weekly basis, not just because of the rising tidal wave of financial chaos, but by the cumulative impact of 5 years of struggle. As I’ve said before on these pages, I believe Melbourne is on the verge of even more significant pain, a sort of reckoning taking place silently below the surface.

Recently, my family has gone through a similar period of dramatic change. Changing circumstances have meant that my childhood home was recently sold. It was a house that three generations of my family have lived in, and as someone who has lived a bit of a nomad existence, this house was a mooring presence in my life. I’m not a deeply sentimental person by nature, but for the first time in my life, it truly feels like I’m out in the world with no handrail to hold for guidance. My profession has led me to this reckoning, and now it feels like my sense of place is distorted too. It’s harrowing.

Whilst trawling through the debris and clutter of old books and magazines at the house, I found a copy of the 2009 Good Food Guide, and immediately a flood of nostalgia washed over me. I’ve spoken here before about my love of the guide, and how it represented a signpost in my year. Flicking through, seeing the markings I’d make to indicate restaurants I’ve tried, and being reminded of all of those places that no longer exist, I began to see a parallel between that period and where we now find ourselves in the Melbourne hospitality industry. This was truly a different era; before Instagram, before the formation of so many of the powerhouse groups that now dominate the Hoddle grid and beyond. Published in 2008, this guide also represented the year I moved overseas on my own, another sort of reckoning in my life. The city I left behind was not the one I returned to, and I thought charting the differences between those cities, 15 years apart, may give us some clues on what’s to come in 2024.

The two most glaring changes between the 2008 Good Food Guide and the 2023 one are, unfortunately for the person in question, inextricably linked. John Leathlean, longtime Age food critic, latterly of The Australian and Delicious, was still the editor of the guide in 2008, and essentially the editorial voice of the publication. No one in the Melbourne food industry held more influence than Lethlean, a power Lethlean was not shy of enforcing, via his uniquely forked tongue. Lethlean’s Guide was far more judicious with awarding hats than the current incarnation; only 55 inner Melbourne venues received hats, compared to well over 100 in the 2023 edition. 2008 also existed in the era before Instagram, a time that seems almost unfathomable today. It was on this platform that Lethlean’s career ended, his careless and inappropriate description of a female staff member in a restaurant, published on Newscorp’s Delicious platform, leading to widespread rebuke and a virtual boycott of Delicious, raged across the comments sections of Instagram profiles. 

Essentially cancelled, Lethlean has chosen to walk away from the restaurant review game, a decision at least more palatable than adopting the cape of the cancelled crusader and rallying against “wokeness”, like many of his publicly shamed comrades have. Lethlean’s comment was reprehensible, and the fact that it was posted online, and that no official apology was made by Delicious, was appalling, and reflective of that organisation’s values. Do I believe that this mistake should mean Lethlean should have to leave the career he spent over 25 years cultivating? Personally, no, and there are several reviled post-Trump reptiles across the Herald Sun and The Australian that say more disgusting things on a daily basis than what Lethlean said. I believe Lethlean should be afforded the opportunity to atone, should he desire one. However, it appears that Lethlean is just as comfortable walking away, his recession from a position of power as reflective of the progressing culture of restaurants as it is a reminder of the power of Instagram.

It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the introduction of Instagram in 2010 represents the official changing of eras in the restaurant industry. The immediacy of instagram meant that venues now had a real-time connection to its clientele; updates about specials, bookings and events were now free and easy for venues to communicate. Conversely, Instagram also birthed the modern scourge that is the influencer, and in general, a shift towards consumers expecting a more aesthetically-focused dining experience than before. This is now reflected in restaurants placing a higher priority on eye-catching and elaborate fitouts; custom neon sign engineers and manufacturers of baudy fake plant wreaths have been the benefactors. 

In 2008, even Crown Casino’s vaunted restaurant offering still reflected the toned down and sparse design ethos of the pre-Instagram era. Restaurants like Number 8 and Philipe Mouchel’s Brasserie lined the riverfront, serving traditional, unfussy cuisine in uncomplicated settings. The melange of creams, browns and industrial NYC loft-meets-Hamptons styling was all the rage, long since replaced by dramatic feature-walls and selfie-friendly distressed brick. In the space now occupied by preferred Bikie date night hotspot 400 Gradi, Robert Marchetti and Maurizio Terzini’s epic collaboration Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons served as one of Crown’s jewels. The cavernous space, serving elegant and informal Roman trattoria-style fare, seemed the perfect mid-level dining option for a casino; open late, as amenable to a solo beer and snack break from the roulette table as it was an all-in boozy Sunday lunch. Just four years later, GAS would close in acrimonious circumstances, a running theme with Crown’s high profile restaurant collaborations; long time readers will recall the cautionary tale that was Maze by Gordon Ramsay, and latterly, Dinner by Heston.

The collapse of Marchetti’s restaurant empire was touted as the reason for GAS’s demise, but it is worth noting that Terzini, who has overseen the legendary Icebergs in Sydney for 20 years, is on a bit of a losing streak as it relates to Melbourne ventures. Terzini’s bonafides in the city are unquestionable; Caffe e Cucia, Il Bacaro and Melbourne Wine Room all leaving their mark on our cultural identity, but GAS’s short life, and more recently the complete disaster that was Cucina Povera Vino Vero, suggest that Terzini may have lost touch with Melbourne’s exacting standards. With a new venue set to open in the coming weeks, a collaboration with Joe Jones, Purple Pit, it will be interesting to see if Terzini can arrest his slide of form in the city he once called home.

2008 was also a time before the era of The Group. On leafy Drummond street, a humble chef named Andrew was behind the pass at Three, One, Two, serving sparsely plated and eccentric flavour combinations in a small, neighbourhood restaurant. Little did we know, the chef’s expansion to Flinders Lane later that year would give rise to one of the most lauded and successful restaurant groups in Australian history. That man was Andrew McConnell, and with the opening of Cumulus Inc, he essentially set the template for the Australian laneway restaurant. From the relaxed formal service, to the versatile all-day eatery style, to the signature open kitchen facing bar, Cumulus would grow to become the platonic ideal of modern Melbourne dining, and along the way, become one of the most copied restaurants in the world. In the years since, McConnell’s Trader House group has expanded its reach across the city to the suburbs, collecting hats with the vigour of a socialite during Spring Carnival, and becoming the definitive representation of the Melbourne style.

Likewise, another heavyweight of Melbourne’s current scene was yet to fully establish himself, but quietly assembling the pieces that would form his empire. On leafy Domain Road, where the vibe is Absolutely Fabulous with a hint of Stepfrod Wives, The Botanical stands at the apex of Melbourne dining. Holding two hats, and being steered by serial kitchen-hopper Paul Wilson, The Bot is a far cry from its current incarnation, more famous for the lurid exploits of Billy Brownless in the back bar than for fine dining. Just a year earlier, the venue’s proprietor, a man by the name of Chris Lucas, had sold the business for a reported $16 million, and riding high from the windfall, is eyeing a pivot from pubs to high-end dining. Down on Church Street, in Richmond, another two-hat temple is the object of Lucas’s desire, the pearl in his oyster if you will. Pearl, under the leadership of Geoff Lindsay, will soon come onto the market, with Lucas buying out original owner Andrew Gunn. 

Meanwhile, at Monash University’s Caulfield campus, chef Benjamin Cooper leads the kitchen at MamaDuke, owned by St. Ali founder and campus-food pioneer Salvatore Malatesta. Cooper channels his experience under David Thompson, Kylie Kwong and Martin Boetz into a chaotic modern exploration of Thai cuisine, all explosive heat and explicit textures. Cooper’s food creates a cult following, though the campus location ultimately can’t service the business’s ambition. Malatesta and Cooper explore opening a venue closer to the city at the new Tribeca complex, but when those plans fall through, Malatesta’s loss is Chris Lucas’s gain.

Cooper jumps ship, bringing with him an arsenal of colourful and vibrant dishes that will form the menu of Chin Chin, the restaurant which will inarguably come to represent this period of Melbourne dining more than any other. The culmination of Lucas’s business instincts, the learnings from an Asian-adjacent tenure at Pearl, Cooper’s cooking and a highly calculated gamble on a run-down Flinders Lane nightclub, Chin Chin is a goliath upon arrival. Melbourne has scarcely seen anything like it before or since, a restaurant that not only perfectly reflects the dining zeitgeist, but completely devours it. One of the first restaurants to skillfully incorporate Instagram marketing into its identity, the creative and commercial success of Chin Chin births The Lucas Group proper. Reading the tea leaves on a cultural preference for fast, fun, relaxed formal dining, Lucas rebrands the refined Pearl into Baby, essentially Chin Chin but Italy. From there, venues come thick and fast, a story perhaps better suited to a future feature on Lucas, but it is interesting to chart the various player’s positions in 2008. Few could have predicted what would come to play out.

Several future heavy-hitters are plying their trades behind the passes of notable Melbourne venues in 2008. In St. Kilda, Matt Wilkinson leads the kitchen at the two hatted Circa, the Prince, a distant cry from the sandwiches and farm-to-table fare he would come to be famed for at Pope Joan. At 35 Little Bourke, where the unfortunately named tourist trap Hochi Mama now serves a post-Chin Chin rainbow of cultural appropriation, a young Joey Vargetto plates up steaks and seafood to the business lunch crowd at Oyster. Down at the lower level of Collins Place, Koichi Minamishima still runs the sushi bar at Kenzan, the lauded tri-hatted temple which now bears his name in Richmond just an idea in 2008.

And what of the dearly departed? The guide of 2008 reads like an all-star in memoriam montage at an awards show. What about Barney Allen’s, where celebrity chef and compulsive plate-wiper Ian Hewitson served up surprisingly good burgers, and an unsurprisingly awful Toblerone fondue. Or Comme, the elegant van Haandel Franco/Spanish tapas bar on Alfred Place? Who could forget Fifteen Melbourne, the Jamie Oliver social enterprise that quickly became a crime scene? I have fond memories of two Con Christopolous venues; the brilliant Gills Diner, now the just as brilliant Trattoria Emelia, and Journal Canteen, where Rosa Mitchell’s seasonal Sicillian home cooking was the ideal city respite. Shall we pour out a jumbo Asahi can for Aka Tombo, the revered Greville Street sushi bar that taught me how to love Japanese food? Or Trunk, where Nicky Reimer’s produce-forward Italian cooking breathed life into an ambitious and innovative multi-space site? Who can forget the mysterious Yu-u, a restaurant so legendary amongst those in-the-know that it didn’t even have a sign, much less an Instagram account. Such a restaurant seems almost impossible in 2023.

There’s much to learn about our city and our dining culture from looking to the past. In the 15 years since the 2008 awards, Melbourne has ascended to become a genuine dining destination, in no small part due to some of the personalities discussed today. It has grown and expanded, the arms race borne out by the birth of the super restaurant group bringing with it a period of prosperity, and seemingly endless dining options for the consumer. However, the next 15 years seem less certain; what trends and permutations will this climate of financial uncertainty and changing customer behaviours create? Who will be the next super-group, and who will be the casualties? By the time the 2038 awards come around, the landscape will have shifted again, and we’ll have lived through enough reckonings to not be surprised at how different it will be.