Page 13: Melbourne icon to serve up last plate

It’s the end of an era — George Calombaris’ flagship restaurant will dish up its last meal, but the MasterChef star has big plans for the iconic Melbourne site, saying it won’t be all about George anymore.

George Calombaris at the Press Club. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Stop the presses. After 12 years as the jewel in the crown of the George Calombaris empire, The Press Club on Flinders St will plate up its final meal on June 29.

“If I said I wasn’t emotional or that I’m not sad about it, I would be lying,” Calombaris said yesterday on a break from shooting MasterChef.

“But you know what, it’s OK. Sometimes good things have to come to an end.

“The actual venue is not closing,” says Calombaris. “No one is losing their jobs, it’s the closing of a chapter, that’s the way I look at it and we will celebrate over the next three months.”

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He doesn’t know what will replace the fine-dining institution. It’s a work in progress and still at the whiteboard stages, he says.

The Press Club was part of the “golden age” of fine dining in Melbourne.

The building in Flinders St used to house the Herald Sun.

He is zhooshing up next door Gazi at the same time as The Press Club deadline hits, so we may see an extension of that.

Calombaris said he sat down and told staff this week.

The news comes 23 years after the presses stopped rolling in the heritage-listed neoclassical building, the birthplace of the Herald Sun newspaper.

Calombaris and his savvy financial backer and chairman of the Calombaris Made Establishment empire, Radek Sali, believe in food “evolution.”

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Sali, the fast talking, quick thinking rich lister has the Midas touch. First selling popcorn at Village Roadshow, he moved up the choc-top of the corporate chain. A decade later he turned Swisse vitamins into a pill-popping global juggernaut before selling it to Hong Kong-listed Biostine International for an eye-watering $1.67 billion.

Calombaris has grown his restaurants into a hospitality empire, putting Greek food with a unique twist on the Melbourne map.

Calombaris says he will reimagine the Press Club site. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Lamb with parsnip at the Press Club. Picture: Andrew Tauber

His white taramasalata dip is lovingly dubbed cod cream and is enough to make diners grow weak at the knees.

Opa!

The once pudgy-faced guest chef on daytime TV show Ready Steady Cook has moved on from smashing plates.

“Jimmy Grants” (one-time rhyming slang for Greek immigrants, just remove the J) have brought their own defining culture with them.

Hellenic Republic and Gazi restaurants are Calombaris MAdE Establishment cash cows.

One of Sali’s first business ventures after selling Swisse was investing in Calombaris’s MAdE Establishment, which now boasts more than 600 employees, or “team members” as Calombaris calls them and 21 venues.

Sali cleaned up the books, self reporting $2.6 million owed in backpay following an external audit. Now Calombaris says it is all about looking forward.

“Having Radek as my business partner, we break things that aren’t broken, to reimagine and dream bigger,” Calombaris says.

“He is a driver. He could have gone off into the wilderness and sat still, but he didn’t. I love that he is so engaged.

“I now have someone in my life who actually says ‘no’ to me. I respect it so much and I love that I’m being challenged.

“But we are not sit-still type of people. Don’t get me wrong, we all know about the tough times that we’ve gone through.

“But we can now see where we are going. The last couple of years we have knuckled down and got the ship right and now its like, let’s go.

“But shutting The Press Club absolutely has got nothing to do with the financial position and it’s totally got to do with one thing and one thing only, a feeling.”

Radek Sali and Calombaris with some tasty dishes from Jimmy Grants. Picture: Rob Leeson

Calombaris said The Press Club will always be in his heart and soul.

“It’s my baby. Modern Greek gastronomy didn’t really exist before The Press Club and little old Melbourne did that and I am pretty proud of that.”

More than 600,000 guests have dined at the restaurant, sipping 200,000 glasses of champagne and downing 50,000 ouzos since it’s inception 12 years ago.

The clientele has included celebrities such as Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour earlier this year and Richard Branson, Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal, John Cleese and Cate Blanchett have gone Greek at the hatted restaurant.

“I think about all the top chefs who have come and dined there,” says Calombaris. “It’s pinch yourself stuff. Heston, Carlo Cracco and Sat Bains have come from around the world to experience Greek food at Press Club level.”

The Flinders St building has its own vibrant history. Construction started in 1921, the same year a young Keith Murdoch was appointed editor of the evening Herald newspaper.

The building was a symbol of Sir Keith Murdoch’s plan to dominate the newspaper industry.

It represented the golden age of journalism The Herald, The Sun News-Pictorial and later the Herald Sun were printed on the great presses in its basement.

The Press Club could also be seen as a symbol of the “golden age” of fine dining, with “fast-casual” the new way of the hospo trend.

“When I opened The Press Club 12 years ago it was all about George, George and George,” said Calombaris.

“Now it’s not, it’s about the 600-plus team members and 21 venues.

“Shutting down a restaurant is when you close the doors and people lose their jobs. That is not happening.

“We are seriously reimagining things. It’s about going out on a limb again.

“On the 29th of June when the doors shut for this chapter I am going to cry, there is no question about it. But vulnerability is an okay thing. We are writing a new script.”

Break a plate, George.