Maurice Terzini and father Arnaldo. Photo: Roger Cummins
The Melbourne food scene's best-loved and most heavily ornamented set of braces are about to be hung up - for good. In fact, the braces - which have been worn proudly, for decades, by legendary restaurateur Arnaldo Terzini, father of high-flying Maurice who operates Sydney's Icebergs Dining Room - may even end up behind glass. Because Arnaldo, a fit and garrulous 80-year-old, has retired - finally.
His name lives on, however, in Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons in the Crown Complex. The Giuseppe of the piece is the late father of Robert Marchetti who, in partnership with Maurice Terzini, opened GAS five years ago.
The partners have now gone their separate ways, with Marchetti taking the helm of GAS and Maurice gaining total ownership of Bondi's celebrity-powered Icebergs. But where does that leave Arnaldo, who has worked with his son since they opened South Yarra's seminal Caffe e Cucina, together, 27 years ago?
Celebrated pianist David Helfgott.
''It made no sense for me to go on working here without Maurice,'' Arnaldo says. ''I love my work, I love being with people, and I love everything about my job. But enough is enough. I will miss my work very much. There are not a lot of things that interest me - just my family, and being with people, and talking … I love to talk.''
One major project is finding an appropriate frame for his braces - he has several sets, he confesses, with more than enough badges to adorn all of them. Then he has to sort through his remarkable collection of photographs with celebrities who loved to be photographed with those braces. And beside Arnaldo, of course.
Ichi and catchy
Tony Nicolini of D.O.C . Photo: Eddie Jim
Ichi Ni, the popular Japanese eatery in St Kilda's Espy Hotel, is expanding into two more locations. Investigating reports of a Japanese restaurant opening in a former butcher shop on the corner of Park Street and Domain Road in South Yarra, we discovered that it could well be a small Ichi Ni. A Tichi Ichi Ni? And also, the word is out on plans to create a larger one in the inner north. The owners of the Espy and Ichi Ni, Vince Sofo and Paul Adamo, have applied to the Yarra City Council to develop the Old Colonial Inn at 127 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. We hear the plan is to revamp it with outdoor areas, a bar and an Ichi Ni, adding up to a significant development on the southern end of Brunswick Street. While we've not heard back from the either Sofo or Adamo, the Yarra City Council is aware of intentions for the property. ''Yarra Council is yet to formally consider a planning application for the proposed redevelopment at the site of the former Old Colonial Inn in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy,'' the council says. A community and residents' meeting, held on Tuesday, November 13, was attended by 62 people interested in finding out about the proposed works as well as meeting with the two applicants. Local resident Megan Fletcher said: ''It would be great for the area, but I want to know what they plan to do with a 3am licence and in the outdoor areas they are planning.'' The Yarra City Council added: ''The site is located in one of Yarra's most vibrant and exciting areas along Brunswick Street so in considering this application, council will need to ensure it is sensitive to this being a local cultural icon and that it reflects the character and heritage of the area.'' Yeah, right.
Tsar of NYE
Celebrated pianist David Helfgott will be the star turn at this year's opulent new year's event at Shannon Bennett's Vue de Monde, at which the food of Russia's Winter Palace will be enlivened by the music of Rachmaninov. The menu has been created by Bennett and chef Cory Campbell who remind us, in a press release, that ''no one did it better than the Tsars'' for whom, from 1732 until 1917, the Winter Palace, in Saint Petersburg, was home. Mind you, this event is expected to end better. Melbourne food tsar Bennett will direct part of the $650-a-pop price tag to The Buttery, a community-based charity ''close to the hearts of the Helfgott family''. ''I am very excited about the menu and wines we have put together,'' he says. ''Not that David cares: he's happy with a cup of tea and a meat pie.''
Jonathan Stobbs of Skinner and Hackett. Photo: Eddie Jim
Close shave for Carlton
Might a battle of the meat slicers be fought to a grisly conclusion in the increasingly delicious heart of Carlton over the coming months? We hope not. But these machines - we refer to the finely engineered, Italian, hand-powered jobs that sell for anything from $10,000 to $20,000 a pop - will almost certainly be front and centre should hostilities unfold. The first slices of San Daniele prosciutto, in fact, are already falling from the whirring blade of the Ferrari-red $20,000 Berkel in the salumi vault of D.O.C. Delicatessen at 330 Lygon Street - the latest jewel in Tony Nicolini's Italian food crown. This is an Aladdin's cave of food treasures, with meats, cheeses, pastas and much more offered with the style and polish that have become Nicolini trademarks. A twist in the tale of this place, where elegantly attired chefs and shop assistants deliver the goods, in every sense, is a fascinating line in Italian wholefoods. Who would have guessed?
And now, a comparable slicer in black Maineri livery in the wittily named Skinner & Hackett meat and smallgoods operation at 400 Rathdowne Street is also shaving cured pig meat and beef of distinction. Carlton is already well-served in the meat and smallgoods area. But now, in the space of just a month, these two new places have opened just blocks away from each other. And as appetites grow, there is room for both. The licensed D.O.C. Delicatessen is adjacent to D.O.C. Pasta, and no distance away from the group's pizza establishment. While Skinner & Hackett, which will satisfy British tastes as effectively as D.O.C. satisfies Italian, is in Rathdowne Village, close to Gerald's Bar and St Clement's fruit and veg to which it is related by ownership. Skinner & Hackett - and, yes, the name comes from wordplay with the things butchers get up to - is the brainchild of wine whiz and menu creator Jonathan Stobbs and the industrious Gerald Diffey who, as well as running his eponymous bar and the adjacent vegie outlet, is a partner in Brooks restaurant in the CBD. The idea sprung from Stobbs' observation, over a glass of France's finest in Gerald's Bar, that many restaurant premium cuts were not available to the public. So now, through S&H, those cuts - the massive Hopkins River rib eyes, for example - can be had. Along with pork pies, black pudding and the rest, all under a sign featuring the shop's logo, which is based on a ferocious English device called, poetically, a lamb-splitter. The arrival of Skinner & Hackett completes the transformation of this little Rathdowne strip into a food destination of distinction, as does D.O.C. Delicatessen, with Nicolini's commitment to a variety of foods and methods of delivering them that breaks new ground even for Lygon Street. So, visit both. Eat splendidly and shop extravagantly. But keep your fingers well clear of those slicers, OK.
A chef of distinction
Vale Erich Mohr, the Austrian chef and restaurateur who, with wife Barbara, ran the deeply loved Le Gourmet restaurant in Albert Street in East Melbourne: Erich has died after a battle with lung cancer, aged 61. The Mohrs opened for business in 1981, moving to their handsome East Melbourne terrace location in 1993. The restaurant revolved around the classically French fare in which Erich had been schooled, but there was little doubt as to his true food loves. His wiener kalbsrahmbeucherl mid knodel was a Viennese stew of distinction. And his Salzburger nockerln - a hot Austrian hazelnut and chocolate souffle with hot chocolate sauce and home-made ice-cream - was a classic rendition and a house specialty.
Pizzeria gets new topping
La Cannella, a cosy Kensington pizza restaurant, has changed ownership, with Brigid Leong leaving and chef Kate Candlish joining Cameron Roche as co-owner. Roche and Candlish have worked together at I Carusi in Brunswick and Prudence, a cafe in North Melbourne.
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