My Melbourne
Sometimes I wonder if I imagined going to the Russell-Collins tea rooms, that one afternoon in the late 1960s. At the centre of my unreliable memory sits a vast white urn of leafy purple flowers, surrounded by clusters of ladies in hats and gloves.
You descended a short flight of stairs - at the corner of Russell and Collins Streets, of course - to enjoy this most Melbourne of elegant afternoon high teas.
A block and a half, but a world away it was, from Coles Cafeteria, where a buxom woman in a limp apron wiped away a sweaty strand of hair, before hefting a huge metal pot to dispense thick brown tea in a steady stream across a row of waiting cups.
A Hilliers frosted chocolate, in a booth next door to the Regent theatre, meanwhile, put the icing on a perfect night out in those innocent, 6 o’clock-closing days.
I spent a year of Saturday nights at Frank Traynor’s folk joint on the corner of Exhibition and Little Lon, where the coffee stewed to vinegar in a big fat urn beside a tray of sticky Danishes. Danny Spooner and Gordon McIntyre singing about whales and wenches, glimpsed through a haze of my hot-pink, cocktail Sobranie: the height of teen-sophistication.
Betty Burstall had her own coffee urn, sat on a bench beside a blazing open fire, just up the road in Carlton, at La Mama. Coarse grounds roasted by Giancarlo at Grinders, no doubt, and packed into an old 30 denier stocking, bubbling sausage-like in the water, did the trick for the sixty or so patrons squashed into that little hotbed of alternative theatre.
My first cappuccino? Genevieve’s in Faraday St, circa 1969. Frothy, milky coffee with chocolate on the top? Get outta town!
Johnny’s Green Room lurked with intent across the road. Late night eight-ball with musicians and mafia types, fuelled with a cotoletta parmigiana to die for, any day or night or hour of the week or year. A deadpan look on Maria’s face as she drizzled the extra virgin and flipped the wafer-thin veal: seen it all dot com.
An even larger-than-life schnitzel could lure you across the Yarra to the Transylvania, in Greville Street, Prahran. This vampiric eatery hung out beneath Leggett’s Palladium – later the location of Melbourne’s legendary Continental Café. Those puffed-up Transylvanian schnitzels were bigger than your plate and more than worth the tram-fare required by a starving artist to partake of their mouth-watering charm.
Still on that side of the river, Mrs Van’s take-away in Toorak Road, next to ‘Maisie’s’ Hotel did a roaring trade in nasi-goreng and other ricey snacks in those pre-fast-food-chain days.
‘Jimmy’s’ was what we Carlton lefties called the Wong Shing Kee in Russell Street, right next door to the Lido – later the Billboard. Every Friday night, after a hard week of demos and armchair-socialism, we’d chow down on the most irresistible fried noodles I’ve yet to enjoy. Laminex-heaven, flock wallpaper décor, speedy service, exquisite cheap food.
We had another Chinese favourite, a place we called the ‘MCG’, because of its enclosed, two flights up of concrete stairs from a lane in Little Bourke.
Jamaica House was up a flight of stairs too, but they were wooden and in Lygon Street, near the corner of Queensbury. Where do I begin with Jamaica House? I’d eaten curry before, but not like this. Was there ever a more sexy, charismatic, enigmatic owner/chef than Monty Alexander*? His was an enormous presence in da house. Those curries of his. Melt-in-your-mouth, blistering, caramel lamb: indescribably sweet. The anticipation, as you lined up to fill you plate from the selection of side-dishes: nuts, bananas, coconut and sweet, peppery chutney. We may not taste the like of that menu again in this town, but we were privileged to bear gastronomic witness.
You can still enjoy a hot-dog of German proportions at the Sizzling Bratwürst stall in the Victoria Market, but hands up those who remember the original owner, Elizabeth, of Elizabeth’s Sizzling Bratwürst? Now, this was a woman (possibly Austrian) who not only put the iconic würst on the Melbourne food map, she also offered a selection of scrumptious, home-baked cakes besides. Her stall was also one of the first in the market to serve its own, excellent, percolated coffee.
It’s been my great pleasure to introduce my own children to the joys of the sizzling bratwürst with mustard and sauerkraut, the quality of which has not varied one jot over the past four decades: a fine Melbourne dining tradition.
As are so many of these quirky memories.
We are spoiled for culinary choice these days in marvellous, multicultural, mouth-watering Melbourne, but I dips me lid to those legendary cafes and chefs who blazed the trail. They opened our minds and our stomachs to a cornucopia of possibility. They spiced our tongues and piqued our nostrils for something other than hard tack, bully beef and roly-poly pudding.
Melissa’s spanokopita, the Twins souvlaki bar, the French-onion soup at Les Halles in Swan Street, the retsina under the table at Stalactites, minestrone and veal scallopini at Tamani/Tiamo, the unchanged, enduring and magnificent mixed salad and fruit cup at Pellegrini’s.
And coffee, always coffee.
*I received a gorgeous email yesterday from Lisa Montague correcting me on her father, ‘Monty’s’ name. He was, in fact, Rupert Montague, known to all as ‘Monty’. Because he was married to Stephanie Alexander I had made the weird shift. My apologies to all and sundry. My memories of Jamaica House, however, are rock solid.