Restaurateur Maurice Terzini has been busy during lockdown
Recent months have been brutal to navigate for restaurants, but Maurice Terzini knew the key to survival was to keep working hard.
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Ever the optimist, Maurice Terzini firmly believes dine-in restaurants can and will survive the coming months, as the nation continues to navigate the fallout from COVID-19.
“I’m not really nervous about the role of restaurants or what they provide as a service,” he says. “I think that there’s a pent-up need for people to be socially active. I feel that there’s always a role for them.”
Still, for Maurice, restaurateur, entrepreneur and party aficionado, the past few months have been difficult. With a large team, a young family and multiple venues all his responsibility, the pressure he has felt, along with so many of us, has been enormous.
As the food industry has been hit with job losses and restaurant closures, he’s had to make some tough decisions about how he and his businesses will cope.
“It was and still is a challenging time,” says the 50-something Bondi powerhouse, who has been a force in the Australian food industry for 30 years, opening his first restaurant, Caffe E Cucina in Melbourne’s Chapel St at 23. “But I decided that I refused to be dormant during this period. And it was really, really important just to stay alive.
“I’ve got a lot of crew, that had been working with me for 10 years, with families and mortgages just like all of us.
“I just sort of thought, “If I go to sleep here, and I disappear and I just sort of stay low, I’m never going to be able to come out of this.”
He’s still concerned about the fate of Melbourne’s food scene – the Victorian capital still in lockdown on the day we speak. “They’re our friends and colleagues, you know?” he says, “and if Melbourne restaurants are forced to close or go broke because of COVID, that will affect wine producers and food suppliers too.
“We also have a moral obligation to them – I mean, we are open, let’s not take it for granted.”
Terzini of course, closed his Bondi restaurants Icebergs Bar and Dining and CicciaBella as COVID took hold, and like many restaurant owners, began navigating the hospitality industry’s darkest days – with Scott Morrison forecasting in May that 441,000 jobs would be lost in the hospitality sector, and research by IBISWorld showing that restaurant revenue in Australia has declined by a huge 25.1 per cent, from $19.7 billion in 2018-19 to $15.0 billion in 2019-20.
“We had to close the restaurants and look after our staff,” he says. “We wanted to make sure that we had enough cash to look after them because we weren’t quite sure what government was doing, but then once Job Keeper came in, well, great, okay, staff are being looked after.
“We just knew that we couldn’t spend a cent unless we knew what was happening with rentals and then the code of conduct came in, which was great,” he adds, of the lifelines thrown to the industry.
He pivoted his own businesses where he could, and as many others did, began serving takeaway meals – indeed, the stats show over 70 per cent of businesses had an increase in the demand for delivery and pick-up during coronavirus restrictions, something most may have to continue in a post-COVID world.
CicciaBella also opened up to local businesses to sell and deliver products to people at home through their online store. Brands like Oh … Pickles by Brittany Smith, Bread Project by Steve Sinclair & Colonna’s Artisan Ravioli by Antonia Colonna became part of their ISO Kitchen. “I don’t think any of us really had any days off in that four and a half months,” he says now.
“What we did was more about having a line of communication with our clients, keeping some type of contact,” he adds. “It didn’t change the world, but it definitely did assist in helping with some cashflow.”
Icebergs followed suit, taking the same direction albeit on a smaller scale, with one off events, takeaway meals and drinks sold through CicciaBella under the Icebergs banner, while he took advantage of the shutdown to renovate his beloved flagship restaurant.
“We’ll probably have to jump into it again as well,” says Terzini of the takeaway model. “I think it’s going to be an important revenue stream for restaurants in the future so I think that we should never dismiss it.”
Head Chef of CicciaBella, Nic Wong, has nothing but praise for how Terzini acted during that uncertain time. “Maurice has like many of us had some really low times during this whole period,” he says. “However, as a collective along with our GM Dave, we stay positive and united. COVID has really brought out the best in many people. Maurice refused to roll over, instead he kept pushing and driving us all in the right direction.”
Indeed, after months of uncertainty, both CicciaBella and Icebergs reopened – CicciaBella with Wong at the helm and featuring a new menu, Icebergs throwing the doors open in August with a week of “Dinner and a show” events under the banner “It doesn’t taste like this at home”, and a newly-refreshed room.
“I really do believe that restaurants like Icebergs provide a social experience as much as good product,” says Terzini. “We’re not aiming for it to be a three-hat restaurant. We just want to be the best of our category.”
It’s a category Terzini knows well. He has been a huge part of foodie culture in Australia since he was a teen, thanks to his Italian father, who employed him at the age of 13 to run front of house in his restaurants. Thanks also to his part in iconic eateries like Icebergs, as well North Bondi Italian Food, Melbourne’s Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons, Otto, The Dolphin, Bondi Beach Public Bar and CicciaBella, he’s set trends in the industry for years and has been a vocal supporter of the Keep Sydney Open movement.
But with success comes the rest, and along the way Terzini has moved on from some restaurants, changed course with others and even failed – notably his partnership with Robert Marchetti and their Neild Avenue venture, the fallout from which went on to send him broke at the height of his career. Like a phoenix, though, Terzini rose again in the years that followed – adding new restaurants to his portfolio and rebuilding his career.
Today however he’s streamlined once more, recently pulling out of The Dolphin and ditching interest in a business in Bali – restaurant Da Maria – as the food world presents an increasingly uncertain landscape.
“So now I’ve just got the Icebergs and CicciaBella. Obviously, with CicciaBella, there’s also our Parramatta restaurant (opening in late October),” he says. “And I’ve got a very small share in the Bondi Beach Public bar.”
That said, he’s definitely not being dormant. “I’m also opening up a 100% sustainable recyclable bar with Matt Wiley at the Mirvac project the Locomotive Workshop (in Eveleigh). Matt’s one of the top 10 barmen of the world consistently, so I’m very fortunate to be working with him on that. I don’t know how financially successful that will be, but it will give us a lot of satisfaction which will then motivate us and keep us creative, and that’s really important, too.”
It seems creativity is something Terzini thrives on – in fact it’s at the heart of everything he does, including his other business interest, clothing range Ten Pieces.
“It comes from his overall sense of the world. He is good at observing and picking out the things from his influences that he wants to re interpret and develop,” says partner Lucy Hinckfuss.
“He gets that fashion and music are important to food and that in combining these things he can create a very chic moment.”
The label, which has been going since 2011, is based on a very simple model, offering small collections. “We don’t really have crew. We don’t really have any staff. We don’t really keep many archives, it’s very much based on this is what we’re producing now, when you get it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. We have a very cult following, which is nice,” says Terzini, who takes a back seat to Hinckfuss in the running of the label.
Terzini and Hinckfuss also have a second project they work on together – their family. The pair have two young sons, Cesar, who’s six and Leo, who is two. Terzini is also father to Sylvester, now 28, who usually works with him in the restaurant business, and has done since he was 14. “He’s been making wine with Patrick Sullivan, one of Australia’s great natural winemakers, for the past four of five months,” says the proud dad, “but he’s back at CicciaBella and we’re looking at doing a couple of projects, hopefully in the next couple of years.”
Right now, though, Terzini’s focus is all on food; successfully getting CicciaBella and Icebergs running smoothly, and moving into the second stage of his “It doesn’t taste like this at home” project – a series of bar events and dinners with notable restaurants from around the country, supported by Tourism Australia and tourism bodies in each state, underpinned by his unwavering belief that the social aspect of restaurants has a real place in this post-COVID world.
“The first one’s with (Chin Chin’s) Chris Lucas, he’s a big supporter of the campaign,” says Terzini. “He’s going to come up with (his Melbourne restaurant) Kisume and we’re going to go down and do something with Kisume.”
“Maurice lives and breathes hospitality,” Wong concludes. “The food scene in Australia would be a different place if he was not a part of it. He makes many people think and questions the unquestionable. I love seeing him on the floor, running food, clearing tables, taking orders, that’s when you can see his true love – restaurants