The Cuckoo restaurant celebrates 60th birthday with a refresh

IT’S a Melbourne institution and it’s celebrating its 60th anniversary. And while the Cuckoo Restaurant in the Dandenong Ranges is sticking to its traditional roots, it has something new for visitors.

• How the Cuckoo became an institution
• The disappearance of Willi Koeppen
• Hills alive with the sound of complaining

IT’S a family affair for one of the Dandenong Ranges’ most distinguished and beloved restaurants celebrating its 60th anniversary.

The Cuckoo has been an Olinda stalwart since it opened in 1958 and continues to draw thousands of visitors into the area with its uniquely European smorgasbord experience.

From tiny beginnings — Karin and Willi Koeppen first took over Quamby tea rooms, built in 1914 — the family has cemented the restaurant’s place as a major tourist destination.

The Quamby tea rooms, before The Cuckoo.

Daughter Daniela Koeppen Rosenfeld has recently returned from living in the US to partner with her 83-year-old mother to run the German-inspired dining hall.

Ms Koeppen Rosenfeld said her parents emigrated from East Germany in the early 1950s and started their dream a few years later.

She said her father, the first Australian celebrity chef, was in charge of the food, while her mother manned the tables.

Sadly Mr Koeppen vanished in the early hours of February 29, 1976, in what remains a baffling mystery.

The Cuckoo is celebrating 60 years.

But Mrs Koeppen, with three young children in tow, took over managing The Cuckoo and has turned it into what it is today.

Ms Koeppen Rosenfeld said when her parents first approached the tea room owners, they could not afford to buy the premises but agreed to pay it off one shilling per month.

The enduring Mrs Koeppen said The Cuckoo was her life.

The Cuckoo Restaurant menu has been refreshed.

“It’s like there’s been no time — no beginning and no end,” Mrs Koeppen said.

“The first Sunday (we opened) we had two people. But every day there would be a few more customers.”

She said while her husband had his doubts, she always said “the customers would come”.

“We had a set menu to begin with but we were so busy and people had to wait an hour to eat, so we decided on a smorgasbord,” Mrs Koeppen said.

Ms Koeppen Rosenfeld said while the restaurant still served a delicious spread of foods, the menu had recently been refreshed.

She said it now included a salad bar, a sizzling grill with grass-fed steak, lamb chops and marinated chicken, home-baked cakes and black forest apple pancakes with ice cream.

The menu still features traditional German sausages and beer, goulash and sauerkraut.

“It’s a family-orientated restaurant, the traditional German oompa, but you can bring the kids,” she said.

“It’s a traditional European atmosphere and very cosy.”

Owners Karin Koeppen and daughter Daniela Koeppen Rosenfeld.