Whetting the appetite
The look and feel of a restaurant is as important nowadays as the quality of its food and wine.
Going out for dinner now is about so much more than good food and good wine. Interior design has come into its own, and the way restaurants look, the way they make diners feel and the experience they help create is equally important. Adelaide restaurateur Simon Kardachi knows this well, and it has led to a 20-plus year career in hospitality and a mini-empire of restaurants and bars in the South Australian capital.
“Back in the old days I did a business and marketing degree, and I have applied those principles to restaurants,” he tells WISH. “Not being a chef, I have always designed my restaurants from the customer perspective; what they see, how they feel, and how they perceive the menu and price point. It is almost the reverse of what most chefs want to do when they set up a restaurant.”
For Kardachi, the experience starts as soon as the customer walks in the door. “It’s about creating the entire package,” he explains to WISH. “From the moment you are greeted, to the design of the tables and chairs, the interior cladding, the artwork and the carpets. It’s the details in the design that creates that memorable experience for guests. It’s not just about the food and wine.”
The site of his latest venture, Fugazzi Bar & Dining Room in Adelaide’s CBD, had a significant history, having been home to the famous Rigoni’s Bistro, where for more than 30 years the city’s most powerful lunched. The restaurant had closed and was derelict when Kardachi got the keys, but he wanted to pay tribute to the past as well as create a dining destination for the future.
“The original concept was to reinstate a great corporate lunch destination in Adelaide, but bring it forward with design, menus, food and service,” he explains. “We wanted to honour what it had been and what it meant to Adelaide. Italian was the easy pitch for that; long lunches of pasta, chargrilled meats. Basically we are want to give people the food they want to eat.”
Kardachi hired chef Max Sharrad to do the food (they already have another venue together called Nido) and Max’s wife Laura to oversee the front of house. He also got architect and interior design firm studio-gram, run by Graham Charbonneau and Dave Bickmore, to create Fugazzi.
“I have worked with them closely over the past 10 years,” the restaurateur says, “and my pitch was: this is the food we want to serve but I want an environment that feels like you can be in New York or in Milan. When you walk in the door you are no longer in Adelaide, you are transported somewhere else.
“We all have fond memories of dining overseas on holidays, whether it be the food you eat or the upholstery or the style of the room, so part of this experience is that you are transported and the designers nailed the brief.”
Fugazzi Bar & Dining Room
27 Leigh St, Adelaide
fugazzi.com.au
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