the sydneyfication of melbourne dining

have we lost our edge?

suuuuuuper quick reminder that WE HAVE AN EVENT THIS SUNDAY. last chance to BOOK HERE. now to the article…

---

a few years ago I interviewed nagesh¹ for this piece. what didn’t make it into the article was his perception of melbourne dining when he was merely a tourist travelling here from his home base of canberra

his infatuation with the city’s small venues and sole traders, his view of melbourne as a symbol of truly independent hospitality – not just hogs breath cafe and grill'd and whatever else is popular in c-brah (according to my ai chrome plugin)

then he moved down and realised it was a facade. most successful restaurants were backed by a board of investors or a portfolio of other venues. the melbourne hospitality dream was an illusion

I’ve been thinking about that interview ever since because 1) he pionpointed a problem with melbourne hospitality that no one seems to be talking about and 2) I experienced a similar deception via a different pathway

when I moved here in 2015, I was struck by the lack of chains compared to my native united states. the way that starbucks had tried and failed. the fact that families prioritised their local pub over their closest fast-casual chain

it symbolised a community-driven hospitality circuit I’d rarely seen. little did I know 90%² were owned by aus venue co

---

in my life beyond gruel, as a food journalist, I have constant conversations about the plight of running a small hospitality business. the price of rent and ingredients and fair wages coupled with razor-thin margins at the best of times. not to mention the labour owners often take upon themselves to keep everything else afloat

I’m no economist, I don’t have the solutions, but what I’m hearing is that it’s near impossible to run a financially viable hospitality business if you only have one venue (and do everything by the books)

so naturally, it makes sense that the group dynamic is taking hold. you likely know the heavy hitters - the mconnells and chris lucases with at least 10 venues a piece under their belt. but then there’s the lesser-known groups like yolk, who own six spots including terror twilight, and only hospitality, who have a slate of suburban pubs and cafes. they’re all over, hidden right under our noses

I used to think australians rejected a group. they valued independent bootstrappers over big biz. but maybe we were all just being duped by groups that didn’t appear to be. or maybe our priorities are shifting because all of a sudden we’re getting a full swoop of sydney operators moving down south, and they’re all about capital power

like the new $2,300 a year (not including joining fee) member’s only club coming to spring street and the upcoming merivale establishment taking over the old soi 38 carpark

does it speak to me? hell no. do I think locals will take to it? hard to say. but $55 mil worth of investment seems to suggest yes which makes me wonder what’s changed. why are we suddenly embracing the flash and the pomp rather than our hidden laneway dive bars and our hole-in-the-wall eateries?

to my point, marmelo, the new sydney-owned portuguese restaurant in melbourne place, was heaving when I visited despite the average $150 a head spend. meanwhile countless other subjectively good and objectively affordable restaurants I’ve visited lately have been near-empty, even on weekends

is it because we’re all just living beyond our means now? or because indie culture has collapsed in the wake of the globalised internet and the mainstream is growing increasingly mainstream as we all strive for and consume the same damn things?

melbourne’s whole shtick is that our beauty isn't apparent – you have to go digging for it and that’s where the beauty lies – in the good old effort and the feeling that we’ve uncovered something. where’s the beauty in being told what to like and then liking it? sounds like some sydney shit³

---

when I moved here I firmly believed that the average australian was slightly more alt than in other parts of the world. I knowww – don’t let your heads get too big. but as someplace sequestered away from the rest of the world, alternative culture and a unique sense of identity seemed to fester here the same way it does in the midwest, which churns out better music and arguably cooler kids than ny could ever

but now we’re living in a homogenous world and it’s made australia, dare I say, a bit basic. disclaimer that this is not *just* an australian phenomenon. there have always been basic bitch trends that “we all”⁴ ascribe to like when “every” girl in my middle school had an embroidered llbean backpack and north face fleece and sperry top-siders

literally every girl at my fuck ass middle school

popular culture is called that for a reason – it’s always been the default, but it feels we now, as a city and as a nation, have less outliers. where have all the rizzos gone? all I see are sandys. the indie pool is drying up, save for an insufferable few who make it their whole personality (that’s a future article), and it’s shaking up our hospitality scene – potentially for the worse – as all the big sharks move in and the little fishies play along, gobbling up $8 a piece anchovies

recession be damned – no one⁵ wants to be the starving artist anymore, eating a plate of steamed dumplings and some shitty byo or having their friends over for aldi tortellini or drinking in a park cause they don’t wanna pay to go out. they want to be the artist who’s made it, who’s seen at the hot restaurant, who’s downing $30 martini after $30 martini, who’s listening to sade on repeat at the vinyl cafe, who knows what a coravin is because consumption is cultural capital

they want to be troye at hope st (if they’re morally questionable) and dua lipa at marmont (owned by an aus expat who lived/owned venues in la which might as well be sydney) and I guess… who can blame them?

(@ myself) don’t hate the player, hate the game

1. owner of manzé and cultivator of truly independent, community-driven hospitality

2. i’m being hyperbolic but the stat would be high

3. no actual hate on sydney, your food is lk great but there’s no denying the chokehold capital G groups have there and the fact that the whole vibe is a bit miami for our taste

4. when is someone gonna contraction this into w’all?

5. except the outliers mentioned who are mostly not, in fact, starving and just doing it for the bit