Main image: Restaurateur Chris Lucas pictured with the venue’s executive chef Adam Sanderson at the street-level seafood bar.
—by Michael Harden
Restaurant mogul Chris Lucas reveals the inspiration behind his masterwork: a French-inspired venue that weaves together architectural heritage, Melbourne dining history, and his own culinary discoveries.
A dish of confit Ora King salmon
exemplifies the restaurant’s elegant
approach to French cuisine.
Maison Bâtard, the seventh Melbourne CBD outpost from Lucas Restaurants since Chin Chin recalibrated the inner-city dining scene in 2011, exudes a powerful sense of legacy. It is in the hospitality lineage of the site, previously home to The Italian Society, established in the 1920s and one of Melbourne’s original iconic restaurants. It is also in the Bourke Hill heritage precinct location, which means Bâtard rubs shoulders with icons like Florentino, Pellegrini’s, Parliament House and the Princess Theatre. But this is also personal for entrepreneur Chris Lucas, who has spent eight years bringing the four-level mega-venue to fruition.
“I think what we are doing here is one step further than anyone’s really done in Melbourne before, in terms of the design and concept being led by both the building and its history,” he says. “But also, to be honest, I’m 64 and haven’t got another one of these in me. So, it’s a legacy project for Melbourne, but also for me because it reflects everything I’ve done over the years, from the little boy working in my dad’s pub and my Greek heritage right up to where I am today.”
He adds: “It’s like being a film producer—when you are in your 20s or your 40s you make different kinds of films for particular reasons but when you’re in your 60s you just go ahead and make the film you really want to make.” This outing is something of a blockbuster then, influenced by the existing ‘universe’ that includes Chin Chin, Society, Grill Americano, Kisume, the recently-opened Tombo Den in Windsor and Canberra’s Carlotta.
Bâtard is a French-inspired maison of fun. There is the two-level Restaurant Bâtard, rooftop bar La Terrasse complete with a Paul Bangay-designed garden, and basement supper club Le Club, all tucked behind the fully refurbished circa-1901 Roman revival facades of two buildings. A third building located behind Maison Bâtard contains back-of-house components like offices and cool rooms, which frees up space in the main building to ensure “everyone gets served properly” from separate kitchens on each level.
Everything behind the facades—meticulously restored to Heritage Victoria guidelines and designed by heritage specialist studio Mills Gorman—is brand new, from the spectacular oval-shaped spiral staircase hung with art and vintage French light fittings to the oak floors, wood mouldings and marble bar tops. Even the basement is new. The supper club, which features velvet banquette seating, a baby grand piano and a rotating roster of live acts, was something of an afterthought, indirectly inspired by council regulations. Lucas explains: “Digging holes is expensive, so we decided to do something with it rather than just fill it with bins, which is what the council wanted us to do.”
The long lead time has also allowed Lucas and team to get the balance right in creating a French-accented space that is also emphatically rooted in Melbourne’s dining culture. The four levels might be liberally furnished with vintage smoked mirrors, lamps and chandeliers sourced in flea markets and galleries across Europe by Lucas and his wife Sarah, but there is a modern, flexible, quintessential Melburnian approach to the food. “The reason we called it maison was because I didn’t want people to pigeonhole this as a French restaurant,” he says. “It’s like a house of entertainment. The food’s not overtly French—we’re not trying to be France-Soir—but we do take inspiration from French provincial cooking that’s less about butter and cream and more about simple uncluttered food using olive oil, citrus and fresh herbs.”
Gallic classics such as canard rôti will
feature on the provincial-style menu.
Bâtard features multiple Josper ovens and rotisseries for cooking beef, chickens and ducks, and there is a street-level seafood bar that includes an oyster menu that, allowing for seasons, features between 10 and 20 varieties. One kitchen is dedicated to fries (so the oil is uncontaminated by other flavours) and bread and pastries are all baked on-premise under the precision eye of pastry chef Michaela Kang.
Crafted by culinary director Damian Snell and executive chef Adam Sanderson, all Maison Bâtard’s menus offer a flexibility that makes it as easy to drop by for a snack and glass of wine (from a Burgundy and Bordeaux-heavy list assembled by sommelier Loic Avril) as it is to settle in and make a night of it.
“We have gone further here than we ever envisaged,” Lucas muses. “What started as an idea for a small wine bar has grown into something that I think captures the golden age of Melbourne hospitality, both historically and right now.”
Restaurant Bâtard and Le Terrasse open 26 November, followed by Le Club in December. maisonbatard.com.au