Hunger for a new type of restaurant model

Good health: eating out is one of life’s great pleasures

Among the fondest memories of early adulthood are my “treat” lunches every few months at Campari, a place that has long gone from the heart of Melbourne but whose legacy, in my case, has lasted 40 years. Campari was not just an institution; it was, like Pellegrini’s at the top of Bourke Street, the gateway to a whole new Italian world for a generation of kids.

Campari wasn’t a restaurant in any sense I understood. If there was a menu, I don’t remember it. You wandered into a bustling room with a faintly Alpine/Tyrolean mood, found a stool at the long rectangular bar and started foraging. Near the kitchen was a woman surrounded by food – a grand antipasti selection, although it wasn’t called that. She’d plate your selection – a piece of cold, crumbed fish fillet, Russian salad, pickled artichokes, a bit of radicchio – and come up with a price, which you’d pay with something we used to call “cash”. No prices were posted; you only knew the somewhat arbitrary figure seemed a fair exchange.

Like I said, Campari was a treat. I wish it were still there. Because the time seems right for alternative business models, ones that get around the heavy staffing demands of a typical restaurant yet still deliver food made well with quality ingredients. Places that tick many of the same boxes as restaurants but defy being put in a box themselves. Places that offer professional fulfilment to their operators without the workloads, and ego nonsense, of being big fish in the “hospo” world. Shudder.

Two examples will hopefully prove to be bellwethers. In Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, a well-known restaurateur has opened Sunshine; the name’s perfect. You can eat in, on the terrace, or take away. You start at one end of the U-shaped servery and point at what you want as you make your way round. All the food is vegetarian – although that almost seems irrelevant – with Greek and Turkish overtones. A bit of rice, a stuffed zucchini, some dolmades, mixed salad, grilled red pepper, slices of proper bread with cashew butter… a lot of good-looking food to edit down into one plate. They weigh it, and charge accordingly, very fairly; my lunch was $18.32. Take the tray, grab condiments and cutlery and head for a table. Water? Serve yourself. It’s a Mediterranean canteen for the James Street locals, and it made me a little nostalgic.

Second, in Busselton of all places, southwest WA, the former head chef at Noma Copenhagen and his partner, the former gardener at said famous restaurant, have opened Alberta’s. They trade four mornings a week, no lunch. No dinner. But every piece of food they serve has so much care, love and craft behind it. Unsurprising, given their background. Alberta’s is neither cafe nor restaurant but it is certainly lovely. An alternative. A bit of lateral thinking, and the time is ripe.