Latest news with #Stephanie's
The Age
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘I've been chasing that feeling ever since': Besha Rodell reflects on her most formative meal at a Melbourne icon
Yes, there was a trip to France. A tower of profiteroles at Les Deux Magots. Breakfasts that included flaky, buttery croissants and fine porcelain cups of le chocolat chaud, so thick and creamy it has taken up residence in my sense memory as a paragon of deliciousness. But my journey into a life in food did not begin there. It began in Melbourne, Australia, at a restaurant called Stephanie's. Stephanie's was Melbourne's grandest restaurant at the time, housed in a majestic old home in Hawthorn and run by Stephanie Alexander, a chef who is credited with changing the way Australians ate. She trained many of the cooks who went on to become the country's most prominent chefs. The name Stephanie's was synonymous with the finest dining. In 1984, I was aware of none of this because I was eight and living with my American mother, my Australian father and my three-year-old brother, Fred, in a share house in Brunswick, an inner-north neighbourhood of Melbourne. The hulking old terrace where we lived − white, with black wrought iron framing its verandahs − had previously housed an elderly order of nuns. When my parents rented it, with the idea of filling it full of other like-minded hippie/academic/journalist types, its sweeping staircase and stained-glass windows and high-ceilinged rooms were filthy. They scrubbed it, claimed its grandest bedroom upstairs, and advertised the downstairs rooms for rent. Some of the first housemates they attracted were a single mother and her daughter, Sarah, who was about my age. Sarah was small, with dark hair and freckles and a gap-toothed grin, the opposite of my pudgy, blond, self-conscious self. She quickly became the leader of our gang of two, bossing me into compliance, though I did manage to inspire some awe with my firm belief that I was the queen of the fairies. (At night, while she slept, I flew away to fairyland, where I lived in a rosebush with my many fairy princess daughters. This is the subject for a different book entirely.) The central mythology in Sarah's young life had to do with her father, who was mostly absent. He was, she told me, handsome and rich and lived in a fancy house with his beautiful new wife. (The narrative was quite different when Sarah's mother told the story.) About once a month, Sarah would disappear for the weekend to her father's house and come back with 50-cent pieces that he had given her – more proof that he was 'rich', since our parents would never have bestowed such lavish wealth upon us. I distinctly remember after one such weekend, Sarah leading me dramatically to the milk bar near school and pointing to the wall of candies at the counter. I could pick whichever one I wanted, and she would buy it with her paternally acquired riches. (Did I mention my parents were hippies? Candy was not part of my usual diet.) When Sarah turned nine, her father proved Sarah's mythology by taking both of us for a celebratory birthday meal at the fanciest restaurant in town: Stephanie's. I have almost zero recollection of the food. There was a huge, beautiful chocolate souffle that haunts me to this day, but other than that, I cannot recall a thing I ate. I remember the brocade seating and deep red curtains, which gave everything a feeling of grandeur. I remember the lighting, the tinkle of glasses, the swoosh of the waiters, the mesmerising, intense luxury of it all. I remember feeling special, truly special, that I was allowed into this room where people were spending ungodly amounts of money on something as common as dinner. Quite honestly, I can't remember much about that year or my life at that time, other than the fact that my mother started sleeping with men other than my father and he moved into a different bedroom and cried a lot and then eventually she moved out of the share house and into a tiny, crappy house somewhere else with the guy who would end up becoming my stepfather. But I remember Stephanie's. My family did not frequent restaurants like Stephanie's, and in fact I do not remember any specific restaurant meal in my life before the one that occurred there, although I'm sure there were a few. I didn't need an education in food. I grew up with fantastic food, some of it just as good – and in some ways better! – than what was served at Stephanie's. My father was an academic and an occasional farmer and a gardener and a devotee of Julia Child. I was reared on homegrown fruits and vegetables, rich cream sauces, chocolate mousse made with egg whites and heavy cream and not a lick of gelatin. My mother had melded her American upbringing with her hippie sense of exploration. She spent her earliest years in Hollywood, where my grandfather was a screenwriter and many of his friends were Syrian. Rice and yoghurt became staples of her childhood meals, a tradition she never gave up. My father did most of the cooking while they were together, but when she cooked, lemon juice was added to everything: chicken livers, broccoli with butter, salads full of olives and feta bought from the Greek stalls at the Queen Victoria Market. No, I did not need an education in food. I needed – or more accurately, I desperately wanted – an education in luxury. After my meal at Stephanie's, I began haranguing my parents on my own birthdays. No longer satisfied with the family tradition of picking a favourite home-cooked dish as a birthday meal, I told them I wanted to eat at restaurants instead. They tried. My mother and my new stepfather took us out – now with a baby sister, Grace, in tow – to a neighbourhood Lebanese restaurant for my 11th birthday, something I'm sure they could not afford. I was disappointed. The food was good, but the luxury was lacking. This instinct, this need for extravagance where it is wholly unearned, runs in my family. Wealth has come and gone on both sides of my lineage, but it has never settled in and stayed. My paternal grandfather owned Malties, a cereal company that was one of Australia's most popular brands in the early 20th century. Then he had a heart attack and died, leaving my grandmother with five children and no idea how to run a business, and before long, the cereal company and the grand house in Eltham were lost. My maternal grandfather grew up exceedingly wealthy in Philadelphia and spent his life squandering that wealth on fancy cars and trips to Europe and multiple divorces, including two from my grandmother, all the while fancying himself some sort of genius playwright. Both of my parents grew up resenting the lack of luxury that should have been their birthright. I somehow absorbed that, but from a very early age, the thing I thought I ought to have, in a just world, was meals at fancy restaurants. I did not need an education in food. I needed an education in luxury. Money was a constant stress when I was growing up; I'd be lying if I said it hasn't remained a constant stress in my own adult life. And yet my mother has a thing for vintage cars, French soap, French underwear, Chanel perfume, tiny pieces of luxury that she should not be able to justify given that she is the type of woman who carries an extra canister of gas in her car because she runs out so frequently because she never has the money to fill her tank. (I know this makes no sense; you need not explain that to me.) In fact, the trip to France was a case in point. When I was 13, my mother came into a small amount of money and decided to whisk me off for an around-the-world trip, even though she and my stepfather were struggling with a mortgage and my sister Grace was a toddler and leaving her alone with my stepfather for months to take me to France and America was a wholly ridiculous thing to do. But this is my mother we're talking about, who drove a vintage red MGB convertible rather than a normal car, who believed her teenage daughter must see Paris to understand the brand of sophistication she believed we deserved to inhabit. I have endeavoured, in my life, to be more pragmatic. I have mostly failed. If I thirst for designer clothes, I know how to find them in thrift stores. I do not long for money, other than the kind that relieves you of the deep, existential dread that accompanies poverty. What I long for – what I've longed for since I was eight years old, sitting wide-eyed in that grand restaurant – is the specific opulence of a very good restaurant. I never connected this longing to the goal of attaining wealth; in fact, it was the pantomiming of wealth that appealed. I did not belong in that grand room! And yet there I was! It was intoxicating. I have been chasing that feeling ever since. This is an edited extract from Hunger Like a Thirst by Besha Rodell, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $35
Sydney Morning Herald
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘I've been chasing that feeling ever since': Besha Rodell reflects on her most formative meal at a Melbourne icon
Yes, there was a trip to France. A tower of profiteroles at Les Deux Magots. Breakfasts that included flaky, buttery croissants and fine porcelain cups of le chocolat chaud, so thick and creamy it has taken up residence in my sense memory as a paragon of deliciousness. But my journey into a life in food did not begin there. It began in Melbourne, Australia, at a restaurant called Stephanie's. Stephanie's was Melbourne's grandest restaurant at the time, housed in a majestic old home in Hawthorn and run by Stephanie Alexander, a chef who is credited with changing the way Australians ate. She trained many of the cooks who went on to become the country's most prominent chefs. The name Stephanie's was synonymous with the finest dining. In 1984, I was aware of none of this because I was eight and living with my American mother, my Australian father and my three-year-old brother, Fred, in a share house in Brunswick, an inner-north neighbourhood of Melbourne. The hulking old terrace where we lived − white, with black wrought iron framing its verandahs − had previously housed an elderly order of nuns. When my parents rented it, with the idea of filling it full of other like-minded hippie/academic/journalist types, its sweeping staircase and stained-glass windows and high-ceilinged rooms were filthy. They scrubbed it, claimed its grandest bedroom upstairs, and advertised the downstairs rooms for rent. Some of the first housemates they attracted were a single mother and her daughter, Sarah, who was about my age. Sarah was small, with dark hair and freckles and a gap-toothed grin, the opposite of my pudgy, blond, self-conscious self. She quickly became the leader of our gang of two, bossing me into compliance, though I did manage to inspire some awe with my firm belief that I was the queen of the fairies. (At night, while she slept, I flew away to fairyland, where I lived in a rosebush with my many fairy princess daughters. This is the subject for a different book entirely.) The central mythology in Sarah's young life had to do with her father, who was mostly absent. He was, she told me, handsome and rich and lived in a fancy house with his beautiful new wife. (The narrative was quite different when Sarah's mother told the story.) About once a month, Sarah would disappear for the weekend to her father's house and come back with 50-cent pieces that he had given her – more proof that he was 'rich', since our parents would never have bestowed such lavish wealth upon us. I distinctly remember after one such weekend, Sarah leading me dramatically to the milk bar near school and pointing to the wall of candies at the counter. I could pick whichever one I wanted, and she would buy it with her paternally acquired riches. (Did I mention my parents were hippies? Candy was not part of my usual diet.) When Sarah turned nine, her father proved Sarah's mythology by taking both of us for a celebratory birthday meal at the fanciest restaurant in town: Stephanie's. I have almost zero recollection of the food. There was a huge, beautiful chocolate souffle that haunts me to this day, but other than that, I cannot recall a thing I ate. I remember the brocade seating and deep red curtains, which gave everything a feeling of grandeur. I remember the lighting, the tinkle of glasses, the swoosh of the waiters, the mesmerising, intense luxury of it all. I remember feeling special, truly special, that I was allowed into this room where people were spending ungodly amounts of money on something as common as dinner. Quite honestly, I can't remember much about that year or my life at that time, other than the fact that my mother started sleeping with men other than my father and he moved into a different bedroom and cried a lot and then eventually she moved out of the share house and into a tiny, crappy house somewhere else with the guy who would end up becoming my stepfather. But I remember Stephanie's. My family did not frequent restaurants like Stephanie's, and in fact I do not remember any specific restaurant meal in my life before the one that occurred there, although I'm sure there were a few. I didn't need an education in food. I grew up with fantastic food, some of it just as good – and in some ways better! – than what was served at Stephanie's. My father was an academic and an occasional farmer and a gardener and a devotee of Julia Child. I was reared on homegrown fruits and vegetables, rich cream sauces, chocolate mousse made with egg whites and heavy cream and not a lick of gelatin. My mother had melded her American upbringing with her hippie sense of exploration. She spent her earliest years in Hollywood, where my grandfather was a screenwriter and many of his friends were Syrian. Rice and yoghurt became staples of her childhood meals, a tradition she never gave up. My father did most of the cooking while they were together, but when she cooked, lemon juice was added to everything: chicken livers, broccoli with butter, salads full of olives and feta bought from the Greek stalls at the Queen Victoria Market. No, I did not need an education in food. I needed – or more accurately, I desperately wanted – an education in luxury. After my meal at Stephanie's, I began haranguing my parents on my own birthdays. No longer satisfied with the family tradition of picking a favourite home-cooked dish as a birthday meal, I told them I wanted to eat at restaurants instead. They tried. My mother and my new stepfather took us out – now with a baby sister, Grace, in tow – to a neighbourhood Lebanese restaurant for my 11th birthday, something I'm sure they could not afford. I was disappointed. The food was good, but the luxury was lacking. This instinct, this need for extravagance where it is wholly unearned, runs in my family. Wealth has come and gone on both sides of my lineage, but it has never settled in and stayed. My paternal grandfather owned Malties, a cereal company that was one of Australia's most popular brands in the early 20th century. Then he had a heart attack and died, leaving my grandmother with five children and no idea how to run a business, and before long, the cereal company and the grand house in Eltham were lost. My maternal grandfather grew up exceedingly wealthy in Philadelphia and spent his life squandering that wealth on fancy cars and trips to Europe and multiple divorces, including two from my grandmother, all the while fancying himself some sort of genius playwright. Both of my parents grew up resenting the lack of luxury that should have been their birthright. I somehow absorbed that, but from a very early age, the thing I thought I ought to have, in a just world, was meals at fancy restaurants. I did not need an education in food. I needed an education in luxury. Money was a constant stress when I was growing up; I'd be lying if I said it hasn't remained a constant stress in my own adult life. And yet my mother has a thing for vintage cars, French soap, French underwear, Chanel perfume, tiny pieces of luxury that she should not be able to justify given that she is the type of woman who carries an extra canister of gas in her car because she runs out so frequently because she never has the money to fill her tank. (I know this makes no sense; you need not explain that to me.) In fact, the trip to France was a case in point. When I was 13, my mother came into a small amount of money and decided to whisk me off for an around-the-world trip, even though she and my stepfather were struggling with a mortgage and my sister Grace was a toddler and leaving her alone with my stepfather for months to take me to France and America was a wholly ridiculous thing to do. But this is my mother we're talking about, who drove a vintage red MGB convertible rather than a normal car, who believed her teenage daughter must see Paris to understand the brand of sophistication she believed we deserved to inhabit. I have endeavoured, in my life, to be more pragmatic. I have mostly failed. If I thirst for designer clothes, I know how to find them in thrift stores. I do not long for money, other than the kind that relieves you of the deep, existential dread that accompanies poverty. What I long for – what I've longed for since I was eight years old, sitting wide-eyed in that grand restaurant – is the specific opulence of a very good restaurant. I never connected this longing to the goal of attaining wealth; in fact, it was the pantomiming of wealth that appealed. I did not belong in that grand room! And yet there I was! It was intoxicating. I have been chasing that feeling ever since. This is an edited extract from Hunger Like a Thirst by Besha Rodell, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $35
Business Journals
24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Boston restaurant industry faces tariffs, immigrant workers and outsiders
Six Boston restaurateurs joined the Boston Business Journal to talk about everything facing the industry: tariffs, high operating costs, Boston's distinct diners and risks to the critical immigrant workforce. Until recently, a restaurateur on a typical day might have to balance shipment schedules, employee shifts and maybe an exacting patron — and plenty else that goes beyond what's served on a menu. The business has never been easy. But these days, the list of worries also includes tariffs, onerous costs and hurdles of operating in Boston, and protecting an immigrant workforce. The Boston Business Journal brought together six prominent names in the local industry to talk about those topics and more at Saltie Girl on Newbury Street. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity. On adjusting to tariffs Kathy Sidell, Saltie Girl and Stephanie's on Newbury: Obviously, prices are going to go up. We source a lot from Canada, so that's going to be tricky and interesting. I think we're all going to be buying a lot more locally. And you can't just pass on these prices to the guests because there's a limit to what we can charge. expand Kathy Sidell of Stephanie's on Newbury and Saltie Girl at her newly remodeled Satie Girl restaurant. Gary Higgins / Boston Business Journal Demetri Tsolakis, Xenia Hospitality: I don't think any of us want to raise prices. My concepts are all Greek, so I import. I have all Greek wine. So it's scary for me. I don't know if I had a psychic ball or what happened but we had a lot of wine stored here locally, so I'm good through the rest of the year. Doing Greek and local is important to us. We don't have a tomato on our menu in January for that reason. Allan Tidd, Blue Ribbon Restaurants: I think what we're going to see is prices elevated, even if it's justified or not, because that happened during Covid. People are charging what they think the market will bear. And I think prices are going to go up because they can, and not because their costs went up. Don Donahue, Lenox Hotel: Forget just the cost of goods. We're going to have fewer guests coming here. That, in and to itself, is going to have a ripple effect. Deirdre Auld, CODA Restaurant Group: One of the biggest challenges for us, beyond the costs and whether it gets passed on to customers, is that with the current administration, every other day is a different story. We're spending so much time as operators thinking about strategy or how we might pivot — that's wasted time in a lot of ways. expand Deirdre Auld is director of operations at The Coda Group. Coutesy of Kevin Martin Marc Sheehan, Northern Spy: There's a lot of disconnect between consumers and restaurants with why things cost what they cost. Beyond the tariffs, people don't get it. They just see what's on the news, and then they see what they walk into when they go out to dinner, and they make up their own mind about why the prices are what they are. Immigration risks are worsening labor shortage Auld: We're very upfront with our teams. We did really extensive ICE training with all of our management teams. We also did extensive training and overviews with our line level employees, because our team feeling safe at work has got to be the priority. We have an obligation to follow the law, and that's what we'll do, but we do not have obligations to do anything beyond that. Tidd: When it's good — and I don't know when it was good last — it's your team that understands that you have their back and that you care. We've had staff afraid to take the subway. Donahue: And drive now, too. Auld: It's not just specific to folks that don't have documentation. Folks do have documentation, folks who are permanent residents lawfully, folks who have even become citizens, are dealing with the same fear, and that makes it that much more complicated for us. Sidell: There's no one at this table who'd have a business if they go away. Tsolakis: There'd be no hospitality. High costs of operating in Boston Sidell: I think it's getting increasingly more difficult to open in the city, and that's why you see people opening in other places. expand Demitri Tsolakis is founder of Xenia Hospitality. Coutesy of Kevin Martin Tsolakis: I went right over the line in Brookline. The process is much different. You get a free liquor license and you still get that Boston feel. So we can do great numbers over there. I think the problem here in Boston is that no department talks to each other. Sheehan: When I opened Loyal Nine in 2015, it made sense to be in Cambridge. At the time, Cambridge was a place where if you were a young, independent operator, you could afford to open something that was a risk. For Northern Spy in Canton, we were actually approached by the town. They wanted to see if we wanted to come down and see where they were remaking the former Plymouth Rubber Co. site. A lack of late-night, bar business Tidd: There's just not enough late-night demand in Boston. We shortened our hours. There weren't enough people coming in to warrant carrying all that kitchen staff for those two extra hours. Auld: Gen Z has straight-up said they're not going to stay up as late as previous generations. They have a different focus. It's just maybe not the next generation's scene. But that's where things like taking away happy hour kind of screws us over, right? Because we had the chance to potentially really double down on business during the times that people want to be out. Sheehan: If you want to come out to the suburbs at 4 o'clock, I'll give you a cheap beer. Tsolakis: I'd be against that. Knowing how much my rent is and how much my liquor license cost, to discount something that I rely on? expand Marc Sheehan is the chef at Northern Spy in Canton. Coutesy of Kevin Martin Sheehan: When I was 21, I worked at No. 9 Park. To get to work, I have to drive to a Red Line stop in Quincy to Park Street. I plated food until 12:30 to 1 in the morning, at which point I needed to already be partially changed so I could sprint out the door and try to catch the last train back to Quincy — and then drive home. How can you attract a line cook who's coming out of culinary school who thinks they want to come to the city to build their resume if they can't even get home late at night? Waiting longer for an ROI Auld: An ROI for us was two years, pre-covid. Now it's three. Sidell: I think it's three to seven. I think most restaurants don't make money back until seven years. Tidd: Say you put an investment group together to open a restaurant. What do they want? They're expecting to start making money on day one. Sidell: It takes eight months to two years to know whether the restaurant is going to survive. Shifting business Tsolakis: We used to have a Monday-through-Friday, consistent lunch business. Then I lost Monday and Friday. But my catering is up because employers are trying to pull people back into the office and say 'hey, come to the office and we'll buy you food.' Sheehan: We used to be open Tuesday through Sunday, for two services a day. Now, we serve only dinner on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The demographic for our lunch business has changed dramatically. Tsolakis: Is lunch a dying breed? Do people go out for lunch? Sidell: I see it on Boylston. Everyone there is going to Sweetgreen. expand Daniel Donahue is president of Saunders Hotel Group, which operates Sweeneys and The Irving. Coutesy of Kevin Martin Donahue: Or Chick-fil-A. Expanding our palates Sidell: We aren't terribly sophisticated. Tidd: I'm from here. I worked in New York for about a year while we're in construction, seeing what they do down there. For us, each location is completely different. Sidell: You came into a city where, how many people really know Blue Ribbon? I think this is the question: Ci Siamo is coming to Boston but do people know and care? Are people going to Contessa because they know it's related to Carbone? Donahue: You said it. Outsiders do not do well in Boston, by and large. Tsolakis: Jean-Georges Vongerichten came in. He couldn't make it work. Our celebrity chefs and outsiders haven't worked. Sidell: You have a legacy with Blue Ribbon. I just don't know how much that applies to Bostonians. expand Allan Tidd is the general manager at Blue Ribbon Restaurants. Coutesy of Kevin Martin Tidd: I love being from here, but opening a New York-based restaurant in the old Eastern Standard space was almost like suicide. Auld: We've seen over the years that food has moved towards Italian or steakhouses, for comfort and stability. Rents are so expensive that taking a risk doesn't work. But if you look at what's done really well in Boston in the last couple of years, it's Greek food or Korean. There is an evolution happening. It's just so much tension for new operators. I think we're gatekeeping the next generation in Boston, because it's so expensive to open a restaurant here that folks who have highly focused skillsets or new cuisine ideas or new concepts are really challenged to be able to actually do it. Tsolakis: People thought I was crazy for having Greek wine. Like, where's my sauvignon blanc? Sidell: I can't believe how gutsy you were. The entire menu's in Greek. I went there and I thought, are you kidding me?
