Why culinary power couple quit squillion-dollar Melbourne restaurant Society

What was behind the shock resignation of Vicki Wild and Martin Benn at Society? To say high profile chef Chris Lucas and Wild butted heads might be an understatement.

Chris Lucas, Martin Benn, Vicki Wild were supposed to be opening hot new restaurant in Melbourne with a squillion-dollar fitout. So what happened?

Countless movie plots have revolved around a clash of titans over the stovetop.

Alpha egos, boiling hot temperatures and a pressure cooker recipe of quality, service and profitable returns is like no other industry.

But there is a certain unwritten code in the hospitality world, whereby a chef doesn’t leave someone high and dry during service, peak season, or just before a restaurant’s opening.

Chef Chris Lucas is going it alone at Society. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Chefs are notoriously a cantankerous foul-mouthed bunch, so calling it a “dog act” was one of the more delicate descriptions proffered to Page 13. See You next Tuesdays came up a lot too.

On the flip side there is often a butting of heads and rolling of eyes when a restaurateur who is not a chef by trade, starts putting their commercially geared two bob in about staff and god forbid the sacrosanct menu.

What was behind the shock resignation of Chris Lucas’s highly promoted Society restaurant duo Vicki Wild and Martin Benn?

The culinary power couple from the much lauded Sepia in Sydney were the names on everybody’s lips.

Headline after headline was written about the headhunted pair, who moved to Melbourne to set up a “kitchen of dreams” with a squillion-dollar fitout (think hand-crafted machinery from Europe craned in) for Lucas’s new world class restaurant on Collins St.

Lucas is the first to admit he is no shrinking violet. As one of his former colleagues said, “He is as tough as nails, but you are not going to make it in that industry being a soft c--k”.

The diminutive figure, with big pockets and a bigger personality has built up serious cred (think The Botanical, Pearl, Kisume and Chin Chin just to reel off a few).

Society Melbourne is said to have a fitout that involved machinery from Europe. Picture: Rebecca Michael

Elsewhere, Vicki Wild, who was billed as the front-of house maestro, is well known in the hospo world for her feisty nature, to use a euphemism.

To say Lucas and Wild butted heads might be an understatement. Wild left long before opening.

The milder mannered Benn followed suit, announcing just the day before opening that he was leaving, which again was not viewed as great timing but not much of a surprise given his partner had left.

It happens in the trade, and three years waiting for the multimillion-dollar fitout to be finished under tough Covid restrictions would have hurt even the deepest of pockets.

But dwelling on the past is the last thing on the Lucas menu.

It’s well-upholstered bums on the softest of seats at Society.