Retro & Friends

April 1998

Steve Richardson has made a career out of doing "the extremely curly, abstract, one-off jobs that are really tricky (for Peter Rowlands). When people want something oddball, want to have dinner on the moon, well, you've got to make it happen."

In between flying around the country (but not yet to the moon) to fulfill meal wishes, Steve has also made his name in Fitzroy certainly and further afield out of squeezing juices and serving breakfasts. First at The Fitz which he started in 1986, and then, after winning the Grand Prix catering contract, was able to go further up the road in Brunswick Street, to open the much larger Retro in partnership with Tony Molina and Peter Mathewson.

At The Fitz the reputation extended beyond breakfasts as the business expanded into The Fitz Fruit and Juicery and started supplying a lot of restaurants with freshly squeezed juices as well as speciality fruit and vegetables. The Juicery's work was particularly appreciated by the National Heart Foundation and VicHealth who got Steve involved in catering for a lot of their sporting events. He was then contracted by Peter Rowland Catering and as director of food, "I was called on to prepare food for the Grand Prix, catering for "high profile dignitaries, celebrities, Prime Ministers and the like."

He happily admits to liking a challenge. Which is why he embraced so readily the challenge of assisting in the Arts 2000 Dine Out with the aim of raising $1million for the five major arts companies, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Theatre Company, Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet and the Victorian Arts Centre. For Steve it's the opportunity to bring together his friends and co-workers in the food industry to support the arts under the Retro roof and at the same time, "provide a decadent afternoon, to play on our inner passions of sound, sight, smell and taste climaxing in the passion of life."

So in the interests of food, passion and life, Fitzroy & Friends which include Jo Beshara of Guernica and Ricky Holt (pictured) of The Rathdowne Street Food Store are conspiring to bring 70 people around a table 6ft wide and 70 ft long to brunch decadently on Sunday 31 May in the upstairs Grand Dining Room at Retro.

The decadent day will commence at noon with a string quartet playing as you down Clamms oyster shots & Stella Artois beer; break Babka bread, hoe into Guernica's rocket salad, Jonathan's prosciutto with Yarra Burn sparkling and Retro's slow baked candied salmon with Peerick's Sauvignon before Act 1 of the Opera. In the interval, The Rathdowne Street Food Store's autumn stack with Temple Bruer Cabernet Merlot then Richard Thomas' honeyed cheese with Brown Bros sparkling shiraz before Coffex espresso and Act 2. If Distorta's individual desserts with Brown Bros dessert wines don't finish you off then the decadent finale of Oxhey & Bushey cigars with vintage port should just about keep you going until 5pm when you are dispatched into the autumn twilight with a bag of goodies for your Sunday supper.

Other friends of Fitzroy and of Arts 2000 who are providing goodies for decadents include The Vegetable Connection, Poseidon Seafoods, Fresh Generation, Kath Hall, Barista Gary Try, Di Simmons, Place Settings, Tim Buzzard, Flower Flower, Christina/Rita Split Rock natural spring water.

The May 31 event at Retro is one of many which are being held in the last week of May for Arts 2000.

An updated review of Retro

Mietta O'Donnell

This first appeared in the Herald Sun on 28th April, 1998.
©Mietta's 1998.