You might not read about them on hip food blogs but that’s just the way these veteran restaurants and their customers like it. THIS week it’s the Argentinian grill. Last week it was Mexican. The week before that – who can remember? Food fashions come and go as restaurants try to catch the next wave. But the real legends of Melbourne’s food scene are out in the suburbs, far removed from the bright lights and hype of this week’s gastronomic darlings.
They may not rate a mention in the glossy food mags or hippest blogs, but they’ve been keeping the locals coming back year after year, decade after decade, for lashings of hearty fare and old-fashioned hospitality. You won’t find queues snaking into the street as you do outside the latest no-bookings, industrial-chic dining halls, but these neighbourhood gems have the sort of rusted-on client base money and publicity just can’t buy.
On the eve of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival’s 20th anniversary, we go back to where the city’s food scene all began.
Almazett: 210 Balaclava Road, Caulfield North. Call 9509 8959.
IN 1978, when the Haikal family opened one of Melbourne’s first Lebanese restaurants, customers baulked at having olive oil drizzled over hummus, tahini was considered an exotic ingredient, and the Haikals found it difficult to source enough parsley to make tabbouleh. It simply wasn’t available.
“The food that we knew was the food we ate at home but it was a novelty in Melbourne back then,” says Bachar Haikal. “To have mezze, to spread food across a table, was really quite different.”
The Haikals arrived in Australia in 1969, when Bachar was a child. His father, an accountant, gave away his profession to open Almazett. “He wanted a family restaurant, run by the family for families.’’
So he acquired a rundown Hungarian grill in Balaclava Road and, with no restaurant experience between them, opened the now iconic Almazett. “This was our kitchen, our place, so the food was traditional: what we liked and ate at home,” says Bachar. “It was a success and still is.”
Now run by Bachar, his charismatic wife, Leila, and their family, Almazett hasn’t changed. It’s had a lick of fresh paint, new carpet and some ornamental rugs hung on the walls, but everything else remains the same. Felafel, vine leaves stuffed with lamb, and syrupy baklava still grace the menu.
“We’re the McDonalds of Lebanese cuisine,” Bachar says, smiling. “People may not eat it every day but they know if they come back a year after they’ve eaten here, they’ll get the same thing again. Same standard, same quality. People like that.”
While Almazett has remained constant over the decades, the neighbourhood has morphed from a purely residential area – with one lone milkbar – to a busy commercial strip. Many of the workers from the surrounding offices and shops have frequented the restaurant for decades. “I know people who used to come with their parents and hang around under the tables playing while the parents ate their meals,” Leila says. “Now they bring their kids.”
Bachar nods in agreement. ‘‘There are only a few places like this in Melbourne,” he says. “People approach business now for one, two or three years to make their money and get out.”
He believes the reason so many eateries don’t last the distance is their lack of commitment to the lifestyle of running a restaurant. “It’s true that this is a business we make our money out of, but it’s more than that,” he says, glancing at Leila. “Almazett is us. It’s a lifestyle. It’s the family.”
Vlado’s: 61 Bridge Road, Richmond. Call 9428 5833.
IVAN Glavis dons dainty white gloves and pulls a side of porterhouse steak from a refrigerated glass cabinet. In one swift movement he slices a thick slab from the end and places it on a smoking charcoal grill. It sizzles and he smiles.
For the past 27 years, Glavis has been the manager and understudy at the much-celebrated steakhouse Vlado’s. The venerable restaurant, which can trace its origins back to an earlier incarnation in Smith Street, Fitzroy, opened its doors on Bridge Road for the first time in 1964. It has been serving the same set four-course menu ever since.
Owner Vlado Gregurek is himself a living legend, named a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Legend in 1994 and awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to the industry. “I often say Vlado is a man in a million,’’ says Glavis, seated in the dimly lit dining room. ‘‘But maybe I’m wrong, maybe he’s one man in 10 million.”
At 81, Croatian-born Gregurek may no longer stand behind the grill every day, but the charcoal still smoulders, the house-made sausages still sizzle, and the kitchen still prepares 21 kilograms of mustard, week in, week out, for 11 months a year. “Red meat was his passion and that’s why he decided to go with that,” Glavis explains of the protein-heavy menu that hasn’t changed for almost five decades. “There’s a saying: if you do what you love, what you’re passionate about, you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s his baby,” he says, pointing across the room to the grill.
If the walls could talk, Vlado’s would have some tall stories to tell. Already they’re plastered with memorabilia, industry awards and photos of sporting heroes looking chuffed beside Gregurek. “Anyone who is anyone has walked through this door, both from the legal and illegal side of things,” Glavis says, grinning. “The best one was when we had Chopper Read upstairs one lunchtime, and Justice Cummins downstairs.”
They come for the meat, specially selected for Vlado’s as it has been since the restaurant began. Many consider it the best meat in Melbourne. “The only thing that’s changed is we’ve all gotten older and uglier,” says Glavis. The newest team member has been under Gregurek’s wing for 10 years.
Years ago, when Gregurek was considering a revamp, he asked the late billionaire Richard Pratt, a regular customer, for his opinion. “He said, ‘Vlado, don’t do anything. You serve real food, not pretend food’.”
So he didn’t.
Penang Coffee House: 549 Burwood Road, Hawthorn. Call 9819 2092.
HUSBAND-and-wife team Danny Ko and Fee Hun pioneered Malaysian cuisine in Melbourne when they opened the diminutive Penang Coffee House in 1978. It was cooking straight from the home kitchens of Malaysia: simple but soaring with heat and bold flavours.
More than 33 years on, little has changed. Sure, the restaurant has moved to slightly bigger digs and there’s been a change of hands, but its heart remains true.
If anything’s changed over the years, it’s been the customers’ palates. “Originally we catered mostly for Australian tastes and so the food was less spicy,” explains Jeffrey Sing, who bought the restaurant in 1995,with family members Sharon Tang and Jimmy Hong. ‘‘Now people can take flavours like fermented fish because they’ve travelled, they’ve tasted. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have served that.”
As the food has become more lively, so too has the neighbourhood. When Sing et al moved in, Burwood Road was far from the energetic strip it is today. “There was really only us,” Sing says.
Born in Malaysia, Sing migrated to Australia in 1990 aged 18 and studied at William Angliss Institute before sharpening his knives in his very own kitchen at Penang Coffee House. The restaurant had already cemented a reputation for its heart-warming laksa and generous portions at loose-change prices. Wisely, Sing stuck to the winning formula, adding a few tasteful flourishes from his homeland. “I looked at what my mother was cooking and tried to recreate that. Of course, with improvements,” he says, flashing a cheeky smile.
Today, steaming bowls and heaped plates are still delivered to the cheek-by-jowl laminate tables. The open kitchen reflects the sight, smells and colour of Asian hawkers markets. All throughout service, Sing pops his out of the kitchen for approval, appraisal and conversation from the crowd. It makes for a great atmosphere. “If people want fine dining and a romantic atmosphere, this is not the place,” Sing says matter-of-factly. “It’s comfortable and casual, just the way we like it to be.”
HONOUR ROLL
For decades, these businesses have nourished locals and provided the backdrop to treasured memories. MW salutes them.
* Bala Da Dhaba, 63 Glen Eira Road, Elsternwick
* Bombay by Night, 355 North Road, Caulfield South
* Kaga Japanese Restaurant, 580 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick
* Carnegie Korean BBQ Restaurant, 2/ 23 Koornang Road, Carnegie
* Lebanese Talk of the Town, 446 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick
* The Little Hungarian, 708 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield South
* Paradai Thai, 75 Koornang Road, Carnegie
* White Village Greek Tavern, 582 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick
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