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The Guardian
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Richard Fidler: ‘Love at first sight is profoundly shocking. You have this thought – oh, it's you'
On a late Friday afternoon, after a week of wintry rain, the residents of Macleay Street in Sydney's Potts Point are walking their miniature dogs past neat piles of crunchy plane tree leaves on the footpath. People are browsing the windows of antique stores and bookshops. Old world cafes offer enticing pastries. The late afternoon sun winks through the narrow gaps between art deco apartment buildings. Elderly neighbours, tipped in leopard print (leggings/scarf), greet each other. It's a serene scene. 'All this was way grottier when I first moved here with my wife Khym years ago,' says Richard Fidler, the radio host and author. In those days, he says, it was bikers, cocaine dealers and 'angry drunk dudes' who came in from the suburbs, cruising around in cars. 'And if they didn't find what they wanted, they looked for someone's head to punch in – or something even more heinous.' One night, Fidler recalls, someone tried all the buzzers at the entrance to his apartment building. 'You're lying in bed, thinking what's going on? Then when the buzzer went off to my apartment, the dude says, 'Where is she, mate, where is she?' I'm thinking, 'Oh, God' but I said, 'She's safe with us now.' 'Ah, ya fuckin' bastard!' he says.' Fidler, 60, an author and former punk rock comic is perhaps most familiarly known as the founding voice of Conversations, an hour-long interview show and podcast that is broadcast across Australia on ABC radio. (He now shares the hosting chair with Sarah Kanowski.) The podcast has built a colossal following over 20 years, with tens of millions of downloads each year. Walking around the leafy streets, no one seems to recognise Fidler. They may recognise his voice though. In person, he sounds very much as he does on the radio – impeccably modulated, friendly, bemused, reassuring, occasionally incredulous. On the show he asks people about their lives using what boils down to a mix of careful research by his team, active listening and wry humour. 'I'm driven by authentic curiosity,' he says. 'Some people make podcasts that are just a couple of people shooting the shit. I actually hate those because there's a kind of contempt for the audience.' Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Choosing his words carefully, Fidler admits that he doesn't normally talk to someone for an hour in his private life – not even his wife. 'It's rare to talk to someone uninterrupted for a full hour,' he says. 'It's eye contact, curiosity and knowing when to keep your mouth shut.' As it edges towards sunset we slip into a cafe. He orders a sparkling water and tells me he wants to talk about something he hasn't spoken of publicly before. 'I disappeared for three months late last year and I'm finally ready to talk about it,' he says. With no warning or fanfare, he simply stopped appearing on Conversations from October to December. 'A lot of people thought I'd left the show because I didn't announce anything, I didn't want any fuss. But basically, my wife was diagnosed with cancer – a nasopharyngeal tumour, right at the back of the nasal passage where it meets the throat.' Khym and Fidler have been together 34 years, married for 32. One morning she woke up with a 'very nasty' nosebleed and went for a biopsy. 'Khym is Singaporean Chinese by birth but moved to Melbourne when she was nine. I learned it's a condition that's really prevalent in south-east Asia. No one knows why. It was certainly news to me.' Fidler took carer's leave while Khym underwent 13 weeks of chemotherapy alongside seven weeks of daily radiation. It all finished up on New Year's Eve. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion 'It was pretty brutal,' Fidler says. 'It's one of those treatments that is extremely punishing but extremely effective at the same time. But the radiation left her neck very inflamed and it destroyed her taste buds – temporarily, fortunately – and caused major damage to the saliva glands. 'We had to wait three months for the heat of the chemo and radiation therapy to cool down and see how well it worked.' In March Khym's oncologist declared her cancer-free. ''Pristine' was the word he used about her scan,' Fidler says, smiling. 'It's a really lovely word to hear from an oncologist. Yeah, so she's going to take a while to fully recover but she's going to be fine.' The couple met in Melbourne when she was working as an actor on the TV series DAAS Kapital, a show he helped create as part of the anarchic comedy trio the Doug Anthony All Stars, alongside Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson. He says it was very much love at first sight, for him at least. 'I remember she came out of the ABC in Ripponlea, and she'd taken all her makeup off and was waiting for a taxi,' he recalls. 'It was one of those rare days where some Melbourne late-afternoon sunshine sort of hit her in the face. She put up her face to smile into it and that was it, I was gone.' She did not share the love-at-first-sight moment, he quickly adds. 'But on the first date we discovered we had watched the same Countdown episodes, and read the same Penguin Classics and we had CDs and records in common, and on the second date, I learned she's an amazing cook. She cooked a completely authentic French bouillabaisse, which I'd never had before, and that, combined with the CDs and the books, I thought, 'I'm going to have to marry her.'' 'Love at first sight is profoundly shocking, on the one hand, because you know everything's about to change but then you have this strangely comforting, familiar thought, 'Oh, it's you.'' Now, at 60, he still thinks of himself and Khym as a young couple. 'But we're not young any more – the cancer has made us reflect on our mortality. Now we want to travel as much as possible.' Over the next hour in the cafe, Fidler talks exuberantly about his great love of history and travel, twin passions that led him to write his popular nonfiction books. The first was about the 1,000-year history of Constantinople, after a trip he took with his then 14-year-old son. He has taken a deep dive on Prague, explored the history of the voyagers of the Abbasid empire and studied the bloody and mysterious Icelandic sagas. His next book will be about Mesopotamia. 'I had to get older before I could start writing books,' he says. 'I had to know a lot more about people before I could become a writer and I had to read more before I could think laterally about historical subjects. 'Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to know how history worked and what followed what and where my tiny little speck of a life fits into that great stream of events and people through the centuries.' Do you know where you fit in now? 'Oh yeah. I'm a very grateful speck living in a peaceful and prosperous democracy. Yes, I know there's plenty of things that's wrong with Australia. It's built on this mass dispossession and attempted genocide, and yet it's an unusually peaceful, democratic, prosperous nation.' The cafe is closing but Fidler is still ruminating on Australia's history and whether democracy is a natural state for humans or something to be tended like a garden. 'I think it's very hard for Australians to hold those two ideas in our heads at the same time, so we'll tend to lunge to one or the other. But I think it's essential to hold both those ideas at the same time. What we have is worth defending, and it's built on this monstrous crime.' He finishes his water and thanks the cafe staff. Walking out into the early evening, his first thought is of his wife. 'Hopefully I can persuade her to come out and dine with me. That would be lovely.' Conversations Live: Unexpected, Unmissable, Unforgettable is touring Australia now
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Popular Sydney restaurant announces shock closure - but its replacement is likely to be the city's hottest new venue
Sydney 's shrinking restaurant scene has claimed another scalp - but this time, it's making way for a French-flavoured comeback. In the heart of Potts Point, one of the city's trendiest postcodes, the high-end, Catalan-inspired Parlar is officially closing its doors. In its place? A more laid-back, all-day dining venue called Le Frérot - and it's not shy about embracing its French roots. The name - literally meaning 'little brother' - is a nod to its sibling venue next door, the polished Franca Brasserie, and marks a major pivot by veteran restaurateur Andrew Becher. Once known for its two-hatted dishes that looked more like art installations than dinner - think anchovy churros and Joan Miró-inspired plating - Parlar catered to Sydney's elite. But in a sign of the times, Becher is moving away from degustation and drama to something that actually pays the bills: croissants, coffee, and classic bistro fare. 'At night, it'll be a bistro,' Becher told the Sydney Morning Herald. But during the day, the venue will have all-day breakfast, boulangerie items, charcuterie, even a cheese room. Le Frérot is expected to open in late July on Macleay Street, and it comes with a not-so-subtle redesign. Gone are the moody 1970s tapestries that defined Parlar. French artworks and a softer colour palette aimed at appealing to Potts Point's changing crowd will take their place - which, according to Becher, is now more mature and looking for daytime options. It's a savvy read of the room. With Bistrot 916 also shutting down recently, which was another beloved French eatery in Potts Point from the team behind CBD darlings Clam Bar and Neptune's Grotto, Le Frérot steps into a gap in the market - and it trades exclusivity for accessibility. But Becher isn't walking away from fine dining altogether. Head chef Jose Saulog, who helped Parlar earn its critical acclaim, will stay on as group executive chef. But Becher admits Parlar's European-style operating model - closed at lunch, frequent staff holidays, and irregular hours - had become tough to sustain. Becher also runs Armorica Grande Brasserie in Surry Hills and recently reopened Pelicano in the old Hugos Lounge space on Bayswater Road. But it's Le Frérot that he sees as a flexible, long-game concept. 'In a few years, it might be Roman,' he teased, 'We want to keep it fluid.' It's a move that mirrors Sydney's broader dining shift. As food costs soar, hospitality staff become harder to come by, and diners tighten their wallets, the city is seeing a steady rise in casual, all-day venues - and a steep fall in haute cuisine. Still, the elegance isn't gone altogether. French onion soup, gruyère soufflé, and mussels will feature on the dinner menu. And yes, there will be proper pastries in the morning.
