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7
Sammy’s Trattoria, Bar, Pizzeria (formerly Caffé Maximus)
In 1988, local architect Allan Powell (13) was commissioned to convert two existing shops here, built about 1920, into a stylish restaurant. It was arguably the first restaurant of any seriousness and style in St Kilda since Tolarno; 23 years earlier (17).
However, it should not be
forgotten, that it was in
Caffé Maximus has a façade flush with the shopfronts on either side, of sheer glistening black tiles in a mathematical grid with symmetrical openings punched in of elegant proportions. The name is inscribed in cobalt blue neon letters, slightly elongated. Overhead is a clock without numerals. The atmosphere is slightly Streamlined Moderne, comparable to the Prince of Wales when it opened in 1937, with its panels of gleaming black Vitrolite glass and stainless steel. At Caffé Maximus, the bar was placed centrally ‘as the focus of activity’ and the centre of attention. Powell explains that the: …essential attractions of a dining room include daylight, the “love” (sic) expressed in the craftsmanship, husbandry or care, of the cooks, the waiting staff and their activity and the subtle unconscious psychological relationships of distance from escape, dominance of over-view, removal from observation of activity, etc. At Maximus, the shiny black screen of the facade expresses ‘the enticing unenterableness (sic) of a typical suburban shopfront to a child, potentially emblematic, a threshold dared to be coined a transitory barrier. Though the shiny blackness of Jean Cocteau’s enterable mirror. Powell is an architect of the utmost attention and thoughtfulness.
The façade is decorated
with charming seaside shellfish creatures by local sculptor Peter D. Cole. Born
in 1947 in
In his 1991 journal
article, Allan Powell traces the lineage of his restaurant designs. He casts
more than a glance over his shoulder back to the Florentino
Grille and Cellar Bar, Bourke Street (renovated 1970-71 by Robin Boyd) and
earlier to Jimmy Watson’s Restaurant (now wine bar,1961-63, also Robin Boyd).
He also acknowledges the designs of the Society,
At Watson’s, Powell
recalls, Boyd remade the three former Victorian shops as a modernist design
entity. Later at the Florentino, he respected the
evidence of the former configuration, by leaving the polished plywood panel
scars where the old café booths had been removed. However, he added exquisite
scarlet glass light fittings by Vistosi of
Murano,
Powell’s first restaurant
design was at the Metropole, High Street, Malvern
(1982). He noted even only 20 years ago, that it was felt that a sense of
luxuriousness implied commercialised insincerity.
The Metropole was the first overt use of ornament,
theatrically and imbued meaning in a
He was concerned for a sense of privacy in the public realm and noted the corner pub quality, a place accessible to all family members; and of several small rooms, where members of the local community might meet by chance. Powell’s design rejected reductionist authenticity, earthy colours and materials. He also considered orientation toward the sun during the day and the passage of the seasons. These intelligent and sensitive observations which determined the direction that Powell’s work was to take in St Kilda and its vicinity are important, because they have influenced so many characteristics of subsequent restaurants, cafés and bars, on or off Fitzroy Street, characteristics which are already taken for granted by the community.
At
Dechezeaux,
Powell renovated the Latin in 1986, with a ‘dreamlike’ background colour of mid-grey, redolent of the forties with a spectacular centrepiece of a gleaming Futurist brass model of a gondola. Characteristic existing elements were retained and intervention minimised, similar to that more recently at the Prince. Powell explains the importance of atmosphere: ‘the primary attraction of a restaurant. It is a party, which the patron pays to be admitted to... (in) suspended disbelief’. The Society Restaurant was also renovated in a similar manner in 1985. Caffé Maximus (1988) followed, run by the ‘revered’ chef of the Latin, but in a casual bar style.
In the same year, Powell
designed Café di Stasio,
at 31A
In the mid 1980s, a civil engineer Donleavy Fitzpatrick, the developer of Donleavy’s restaurant, Armstrong Street, Middle Park in about 1978, the Vic Ave restaurant, the Smith Street Bar and Grill in Collingwood and the George and Seaview Hotels complex with the Melbourne Wine Room and Brooklawn all in Fitzroy Street, (18), finally bought the residential building pair Colombo Court and Harley Court at 54 and 56 Acland Street. In 1995, he told The Age of his ‘vivid memories of driving along the St Kilda foreshore and wondering why there weren’t more balconies, more rooftop gardens and more people on the streets, just enjoying life, the water and the elements’.
His objective, a small
hotel with a licensed roof terrace, did not slot into existing planning and
licensing legislation in
The benefit that we all enjoy as a consequence of the diversity of licensed businesses in Victoria, including the bar scene, is very much a consequence of Don’s unrelenting challenging of the status quo of licensing law and policy in the early to mid-1990s... All in the industry owe a great debt to him. It took the Nieuwenhuysen Report to create a new licence type, to enable Donleavy Fitzpatrick’s Dogs’ Bar to eventually open in 1988, as one of the first ‘licensed cafés’ in Victoria, rather than as the restaurant licence held by Maximus and Tolarno. It is difficult to credit that our ubiquitous café culture is all so remarkably recent.
Amongst the confetti of
cafés and restaurants that followed in St Kilda, some are of architectural
value: the George Public Bar designed by Grant Amon
(the former Snake Pit, 1992) is one example. Also there is Termini (the former
Victory Café), 60A
References
Brown-May, Andrew. Espresso!
Lethlean,
John. ‘St Kilda celebrates a visionary’s special circle of life.’
The Age.
Peck, Robert,
von Hartel.
Trethowan
and Henshall Hansen Associates.
City of
Powell, Allan. ‘Designing for Dining’.
Architecture
Scarlett, Ken. Australian Sculptors. Nelson 1980. p122.
Upton, Gillian. The George.
St Kilda Life and Times.
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