Hotel restaurants in Melbourne back in vogue
SAVVY hotel operators are upping their food and beverage game, writes Dan Stock, matching Melbourne’s status as a dining destination.
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IN Bangkok, when you arrive for your reservation at David Thompson’s Michelin-starred Nahm, you enter via the lobby of the Como Hotel.
In Hong Kong, Lung King Heen offers three-Michelin-star dim sum on the fourth floor of the Four Seasons.
In London, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal takes over the ground floor of the Mandarin Oriental on the edge of Hyde Park, while in New York the best hotel restaurants are simply known as Manhattan’s best restaurants.
But here in Melbourne, not since Paul Wilson at the Park Hyatt’s Radii restaurant, or perhaps Stuart McVeigh at the Sofitel’s No. 35, have our hotels been famed for their food.
But that’s changing.
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The Ritz-Carlton is coming to town. So, too, the ultra-trendy W Hotel. Not to mention the Flinders Lane sequel to the Mornington Peninsula’s Jackalope Hotel and its lauded restaurant, scheduled for 2020.
Against this backdrop of a five-star hotel boom, established operators are upping their food and beverage game.
No longer will a beige buffet or banquet-style chicken or beef cut it with discerning travellers who are increasingly planning their itinerary around our city’s famed food and wine offering.
For the savvy hotelier, this represents not a challenge, but opportunity.
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Accor Pacific food and beverage strategy director Kevin Milner says transforming hotel restaurants into destination dining locations in their own right is a key pillar of the group’s F & B game plan.
“When you travel abroad, in Asia for instance, hotel dining is a cool thing to do,” Kevin says.
“Here, if people want to go to a cool restaurant or cool bar, they don’t go to a hotel. There’s certainly the reputation they are pretty flat. But if we use the hotel environment as a positive, then there’s huge opportunity.”
The group is three years into a five-year transformation plan, rebranding and refurbishing restaurants and bars across the Accor group — which includes the Hotel Lindrum M Gallery, the Sofitel, and Novotel — into their own identities.
The Cliveden opened last year at Pullman on the Park, a stand-alone restaurant opposite the MCG, that now attracts a 50-50 mix of hotel guests and outside diners.
“Dining is now separate to the hotel, as opposed to being a hotel restaurant. It’s more about the restaurants operating independently,” Kevin says.
He says after changing the restaurant at the Novotel Glen Waverley from a standard all-day dining proposition into the rebranded Butcher’s Bench with a focus on steaks and meat, revenue doubled almost overnight.
“We’ve changed 20 restaurants across the group and, on average, revenue has gone up 70 per cent.”
This focus on hotel dining makes dollars as well as sense.
DESTINATION DINING
When the World’s 50 Best Restaurants juggernaut rolled into town last year, the best chefs from around the globe stayed at the new QT.
It cemented the funky Russel St hotel as a hip destination for not only travellers, but local drinkers.
Its rooftop bar is now a destination, its cocktails among the city’s best.
Andy Harmer is its new executive chef, responsible for the food offering across the boutique hotel, and his mission is to do the same to its signature restaurant, Pascale’s Bar + Grill.
Previously executive chef at Vue de Monde and most recently at Albert Park’s The Point, the challenge, he says, is to unify the hotel’s multiple outlets — restaurant, cake shop, two bars, events and in-room dining.
“There are so many different menus, options, but no synergy with any of it. I had to bring it together, make everyone work together. It’s different to a stand-alone kitchen where you have a very tight team who can almost pre-empt what the person next to them will do. Here, we’re open seven days, with multiple staff, multiple kitchens. It’s a big challenge to achieve that when you have so many people,” he says.
But it’s a challenge he’s up for.
“(In a hotel) you have these really beautiful spaces that seem to be under-utilised. I’ve brought a restaurant philosophy into the kitchen of a hotel. Brought the drive, techniques to help push it forward,” he says.
“There’s a certain stigma that goes with hotels. You have to have a club sandwich, all around the world. So, if we have to do that, let’s just do it really bloody well. Be the best at doing it. Think about technique, taste, flavour, to something so basic, make it the best.”
Andy says one of the key changes he’s instituted in the restaurant is a more modern approach to the food, for it to better reflect dining trends across Melbourne.
Smoked wallaby tartare with saltbush, and John Dory with whipped cod roe, are just two of the new dishes on Andy’s menu that will be launched next week.
He says one of the problems with hotel dining around the city is that the offering isn’t local.
“A lot of hotels offer just stock standard things. Nothing exciting about it, not interesting, and not Melbourne. I’ve changed the breakfast menu. We’re in Melbourne, people are travelling, so let’s give them a Melbourne breakfast. Let’s give them a local cafe experience in the hotel,” he says.
“It’s the one meal you know almost every guest is going to have, so you should leave a fantastic memory with them.”
PARTY ON A PLATE
It’s breakfast that Matt Stone and Jo Barrett are focusing on perfecting with the aim of leaving lasting memories.
Next month, the beating heart of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival will be on Flinders St, when for 10 days the Hotel Lindrum will be transformed into the House of Food and Wine Hotel.
It will be the place where nightly international chef collaborators will cook a series of sustainable dinners.
There’s a bar where the best Victorian wines, beers and spirits will be served, while the state’s best produce will be offered across a bar menu, for in-room dining and for breakfast.
Matt and Jo have been charged with transforming the food and drink offering over the 10 days at the hotel.
It’s a big change from their day-to-day life cooking at Oakridge in the Yarra Valley, which is currently ranked at 14th in Victoria in the delicious. 100.
“In the restaurant it’s on our terms in a lot of ways, in a hotel it’s a completely different experience. Guests are staying, so we have to consider all the needs, not just one individual meal. We’ve had to think about how we can wow guests in different ways,” Matt says.
Jo agrees: “In a hotel, that’s the crazy thing you’re at people’s beck and call all the time.
“But on the other hand you get to really complete the experience. It’s open to the public, so they can have a cocktail, try some food, the vibe will be awesome.”
The duo is planning “an epic hotel spread” for breakfast, with freshly milled flour going into all-Victorian croissants, for instance, along with a traditional breakfast items given a native ingredient twist.
Matt says it’s an exciting time for hotels across the country.
“The new wave of hotels that are opening have really refined their offering, bringing it in line with what a lot of modern chefs are doing and producing. They are moving towards what is contemporary Australian food.”
Andy is also hopeful this change gains momentum.
“With any luck there should be a turning point and realisation from hotels that we’re the food capital of Australia. It’s a great opportunity to have fantastic restaurants within the hotels, and get good people to deliver the job, which can only do good things for the industry.”
Kevin from Accor agrees.
“As we develop better venues, restaurants and bars, we attract better talent, and they stay with us for a long time. People want to work in cool places,” he says.
And we want to eat and drink in them.
DO THIS
The Hotel Lindrum will be transformed into the House of Food and Wine Hotel, the hub of the 2018 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
Over 10 days from March 16, it will host a series of sustainable dinners co-curated with ZeroFoodprint, cooked by chefs including Anthony Myint (Mission Chinese, San Franciso), Shinobu Namae (L’Effervescence Tokyo) and Matt Orlando (Amass Copenhagen) who’s teaming up with Attica’s Ben Shewry.
For event tickets or to book a room, visit: MFWF.com.au
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