Gimlet at Cavendish House, Melbourne

Opening a new restaurant during a pandemic was always going to be a challenge but this new star has learned to roll with the punches.

Gimlet, Melbourne

The month of May was a rollercoaster ride for Melbourne restaurateur Andrew McConnell. In the first week, The Australian’s food critic John Lethlean gave his new cocktail bar and dining room Gimlet a glowing review, declaring he’d had “a meal I didn’t want to end”, and that it had recaptured the magic of dining in the city that suffered thanks to Covid-19. But just a few weeks later McConnell had to close Gimlet’s doors as the state went back into lockdown for the fourth time.

“We just have to cross our fingers again,” McConnell tells WISH over the phone in the midst of the first week of this lockdown, hoping it would lift after seven days. It didn’t, but Gimlet did eventually reopen in early in June, and opened to full service in the middle of June. Fingers crossed it stays that way, but one thing McConnell has learnt over the past 18 months is that anything can happen.

“We were supposed to open in March last year but that is when we could see what was happening in Europe, and talking to our friends in Europe and Italy it was like watching a slow motion train crash, so we resisted opening,” he recalls. “And we had a little window, in June or July, when we were in between lockdown one and two and it was looking promising so we opened to 20 people, but two weeks later we went back into lockdown so we canned that.”

‘The best of smart European bistro cooking’. Picture: Earl Carter

McConnell finally opened Gimlet, his eighth Melbourne restaurant, in October. And it was met warmly, not only by the critics but by the city’s diners. “There is never really a right time to open a restaurant,” he says, “but I must say, after coming out of a really nasty lockdown with an 8pm curfew to boot people came into Gimlet, and it wasn’t something they had seen before and the experience was amazing. It was an escape we all needed, the medicine we all needed after the lockdown.”

Gimlet had come about two years earlier when a retail space at Cavendish House, on the corner of Flinders Lane and Russell Street, became vacant. McConnell and his wife Joanne had admired the 1920s Chicago-style architecture and often visited the furniture shop that was previously located on the busy CBD corner. “It’s a great spot in Melbourne and it’s a beautiful, large open space,” he tells WISH. “It has lots of heritage features and these large windows. So when it became available I thought it was a great opportunity to do something spectacular there.”

That something spectacular was centred on cocktails. Gimlet is named after the gin and lime juice cocktail. “We wanted to revive the cocktail,” explains McConnell. “The cocktail culture is really strong in Melbourne but a lot of the good bars are hidden and are underground. We wanted to celebrate the cocktail above ground in a really grand way in a beautiful room.”

Gimlet’s cocktails are something special. Picture: Jo McGann

The chef – who now has eight venues, including Melbourne institutions Cumulus Inc. and Supernormal – turned to Sydney-based interior design duo Vince Alafaci and Caroline Choker from ACME to transform the former furniture shop into a European-style dining room. “The history of the space really informs the design when I am working on a project,” McConnell says, “and that was very much the case with this building as it was 1920s Chicago Art-Deco style. We really loved Vince and Caroline’s vision, and they spent 18 months working on the space and it now makes us happy.”

As for the food to go with the exceptional cocktail list, McConnell says it is “the best of smart European bistro cooking” with a focus on good seasonal produce. “That said, I can’t help myself sometimes and I do other things, but our foundations are in classic European and that’s a combination of French technique, wholesome Italian cooking and some influences of Spain,” he laughs. “I think with my cooking it’s the available produce that influences what happens on the menu.”

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