Great survivors against all odds
Within a week, not one but two well-known Melbourne chefs/restaurateurs announce liaisons with catering firms as their way forward in business. Several Sydney chefs march internationally with models who see them as consultants and lenders of a brand, rather than hand-in-the-pocket, sign-a-lease restaurateurs.
A model far more familiar to internationals, like the great Alain Ducasse, than Australians.
Chef and restaurateur Neil Perry was making waves at Blue Water Grill, Bondi, in 1988.
Spot the trend. Chefs as restaurant entrepreneurs may be a dying breed as the returns, and risks, liabilities and vulnerability to domino-effect collapses just seem to get greater. The burnout rate in our restaurants is quite remarkable, so what stands in the way of longevity for our chefs and dining rooms?
Let me count the ways. Sheer hard bloody physical work. Modest profit margins relative to investment and not particularly outstanding salaries. The hours. The warm breezes and savage storms of the economic climate. The whims of fashion. The ever-shifting industrial relations sands. The almost foreign language - for chefs, anyway - of marketing and its propensity for growing new tentacles, like the digital cane toad that is social media. Marriage. Children. Divorce. Alcohol. Drugs, probably. Not to mention that factor nobody can control, really: the media.
And you wonder why we make a fuss over restaurants, and chefs, who manage 25 years or longer in the public eye?
The truth is, there are few chefs, restaurateurs or chef/restaurateurs (a difficult double act) still punching above their weight in the restaurant game who were in the ring 25 years ago, too. All that stuff above ... it takes a toll. People find easier jobs. Work for others. Get their money out while they can. Or go broke for the final time. And tire of telling junior waiters why it's not cool to have a cigarette and come back smelling like a sewer.
It's a young industry, but is that such a good thing?
It's great young people can still find entrepreneurial opportunities; terrible that talent and experience so often gets lost to the ranks needing training and leadership most. Which is why you just have to respect those still doing it - well - after a quarter of a century.
It was subject of office discussion recently when The Weekend Australian Magazine celebrated 25 years and we were scouting for someone with exactly 25 years under his/her belt at the one, continuously owned restaurant. And of others in the industry still doing things we admire.
Neil Perry, for one: in 1988 he was making waves at Blue Water Grill at Bondi Beach and the following year opened Rockpool, in George Street, a game-changer.
Tetsuya Wakuda, who was cooking at Ultimo's in 1988 before beginning the chapter of Australian gastronomy called Tetsuya's in 1989, in Rozelle.
Melburnians Rinaldo Di Stasio, of legendary Cafe di Stasio, and Guy Grossi, who opened Caffe Grossi in 1988.
Jacques Reymond, of the eponymous Melbourne restaurant, who opened his place above a launderette in 1988. Alla Wolf-Tasker, who has redefined the expression "work in progress" at Lake House, Daylesford, for 30 years.
You'd need to dip your lid, too, to Gilbert Lau, Tony Bilson, Lucio Galletto. And chefs like the Doyle brothers, Peter and Greg, who have contributed much to Australian food, and continue to do so.
They are but a selection.
In that time we have gone from white linen, Christofle and Wedgwood to stripped tables, chopsticks and timber presentation boards. Dining out has lost its formality, asserting its egalitarian self; where restaurants were analogous to the theatre, they are now more comparable to a movie or, closer, a rock show.
It is fun; and with travel and the web, it is global, too.
And the internet has had more impact on the restaurant scene than many might have imagined, from inspiration to plagiarism; gossip to celebrity-making; booking systems to marketing. And, of course, the always saucy topic of restaurant criticism. The advent of self-publishing, be it blogging or online magazines, has democratised the review, once the preserve of the mainstream media. It's commonly accepted that "old media" restaurant reviews are less influential now than they were than 25 years ago in a pre-digital age when a shocker could kill. Readers are less reliant on a small number of voices.
But think about this. The most infamous restaurant review in Australian history, that of Sydney's The Blue Angel, by Leo Schofield, failed to put even a dent in the place. Now that, truly, is remarkable.
Source: The Australian 5 October 2013
