Julien Pascal & Julien Wurtlin

It’s really lovely to be here finally, with the two Juliens at Babines.

Julien Pascal: Thanks for coming back to see us and obviously. We not open just yet, so it’s a bit different vibes, but we’re very happy to see you. 

I had a little walk down to the back room just before and that’s all new since I was here last. You’ve done such a great job, it looks really good. That soundproofing, that beautiful brick. I really love the lights as well, like little constellations. 

JP: It’s cool with the little clusters as well spread around, for sure. It definitely changed the vibe and makes it a little bit more cosy with the soundproofing as well. 

You have started to make quite a name for yourselves, so you need that extra room, but it would be a great room for people to book out as well. 

JP: It’s very much a space destined for function booking at a moment. We actually have a fair bit of demand at the moment, especially for October and November, December, all the Christmas season. But ultimately we would love this space to be an extension of what we’re doing on a daily basis. 

When did you first open?

Julien Wurtlin: 14th of June 2024, just a little over a year now. 

I really appreciate the way that you’ve taken your time to feel the area, to feel what the people want to feel out the space and so on as well. It feels like you’re in a really great place now with all of that. 

JW: Definitely. I think there was lots of lots of work to be done on the fitout as well first and foremost, but also lots of equipment we couldn’t afford from the get-go. So obviously being organic was the better option for us. I don’t think we could ever necessarily staff the entire venue from the start and have the offering that we now have if we had been going hard straight away from the get-go. Definitely organic, slower growth, but a bit more sustained was a big plus for us because it’s shaped the offering a bit differently from what we had in mind in the beginning. Obviously you come with ideas of what you want to do and what you like to cook or make as drinks. Ultimately you cook and make drinks for the people, the patrons that come in your venue every day, so there has to be a fine balance. That’s something Jules was very much across, because he used to run a bar just across the corner, so a very similar market. From my background, it was very different I’d never worked in Collingwood and I’ve always worked more fine dining and more up-scale, restaurants and bars, so I think it was good to take our time, take the temperature of the water and just adjust based on that. It’s also our first business, so it’s not like we had a lot of experience and see exactly what works and what doesn’t. 

JP: There were a lot of mistakes on the way, a lot of delays on opening as well. Ultimately, I think we ended up in the situation where we opened the doors, our main background is cocktails; doing cocktails, beverages is what we’ve been doing in the past 10, 12 years and so naturally that’s what the focus would be, but we actually didn’t even think through too much ahead of opening the doors about what we were going to do. All of that has to be a little bit more clear in your mind as well. 

Definitely organic, slower growth, but a bit more sustained was a big plus for us because it’s shaped the offering a bit differently from what we had in mind in the beginning. Obviously you come with ideas of what you want to do and what you like to cook or make as drinks. Ultimately you cook and make drinks for the people, the patrons that come in your venue every day, so there has to be a fine balance.

Julien Wurtlin, Babines

What were some of the challenges?

JP: Some of the challenges, I think mostly has been renovation in the first place. I think this has been harder. 

JW: It always takes longer to expected. We also did most of it ourselves ourselves. It helped that Jules’ wife is an architect. We were really lucky to have a really good plan and design mapped out for us, but, it’s always fun to learn how to plaster the roof of a bar at 4am on YouTube.

JP: Doing the flooring. There were definitely big difficulties. I think all the permits and requirements as well are quite tight as well. It’s definitely something that we’ve navigated for the first time: food licence, liquor licence, footpath trading outside, all of that has been quite a heavy as well. Hygiene certified for food. There’s a lot of elements to consider. 

JW: Jules mentioned liquor licensing, and it takes time, it’s basically two weeks where you’re paying rent and you just can’t operate. They are big setbacks when you have never done this before. So yeah, I think renovation and licences were the biggest ones. We also have a big venue, a big space, if there’s an amount of stuff that can go wrong per metre square, we’ve got a fair chance. 

JP: I agree with you. It’s proportional: the bigger your space, the more chance you can have all different sorts of issues. 

They are old buildings down here as well, aren’t they? 

JP: You don’t know what you’re getting. Ultimately when you when you have a brick-and-mortar shop, you are attached to the physicality of the shop and very often, you don’t really know how it’s been treated before, things need to be maintained, things needs to be treated with love. And if people haven’t necessarily put a lot of love in over previous years, well, you’re going to inherit from all of that and you’re going to have to deal with that. 

JW: As a tenant, you’ve got a lot of responsibilities on your plate. There’s so many things that you might not be aware of, unless you have a broker and you go through the whole process, which is probably the thing you should be doing, if you’ve got the money and time to do it. It’s hard to know everything. 

Obviously, you haven’t opened a business in France, but how do you think it compares? 

JP: I think it’s on par, I think it’s quite similar. I feel like there are certain things that are probably a little more precise here and a little more specific, but I feel like in France, we’ve got a lot of permits and applications and criteria that you need to tick.

JW: I think in France, it would be easier, in my mind anyway, because it’s obviously our first language and we also have a network and families to rely on. People that probably went through the same licensing, or setting up a business, so you benefit from their experience, which here for us it was very much a first. 

Well, it makes it even more impressive, what you’ve achieved, so, well done. When I when I first came in and then I just told everyone about how much I loved it here, I really loved the food. We had a few different snacks and the one that really stands out was the anchovy toast soldiers, anchoiade. The cocktails were so beautiful and delicious. You were saying that you’ve changed the offer a bit. Can you talk me through what you’re doing now? 

JP: In the very first place, when we started, we built up a strategy where we were doing some prep food for local cafes. We were using the massive kitchen that you saw to prepare food that we were selling at a wholesale price for local cafes. This was guaranteeing us a bit of revenue and it gave us security, because obviously for us, it was like, cool, let’s open the doors and let’s see what happens. But we were very unsure about what revenue we would tap into at the beginning. 

JW: We didn’t have a liquor license to start off as well at the beginning when our rent started to kick in. That was one of the ways we could get some revenue, but also a way to take off pressure from the service, because obviously with just the two of us between floor, bar, and kitchen for the first couple of months, we could actually generate revenue during the time when we were closed, so it was a good balance. 

JP: That’s something we haven’t been doing now for about six months. It was always our plan to fully use this kitchen for the offering and the experience here, so it was natural to develop the food menu over time, we are still just doing something very bar oriented, but something where we can you can also have a full dinner here as well. That was the aim. So naturally the food menu has grown up, the offering has more choices now. We have this really cool prix fixe menu as well: a little selection of one starter, one main, one dessert, so a three course, super good value, very simple to understand as well. But it is still a super approachable easy to pick food menu where the idea is like, you’re basically building around different items, you’re sharing a little bit of everything and you make a little selection of three, four, five dishes, and you share that with everyone around the table, good drinks and good company. 

The salt cod fritter is that like a brandade de morue reference? 

JP: Absolutely that’s exactly what it is: salted cod fish fillet. It comes preserved and salted. So you have to go through a process of soaking them, de-salting it, so you have to change the water over the course of four, six hours, and once it’s done, you cook your fish, fleshing it out, and you batter that: flour, eggs, a bit of yeast as well, we’re just going to give this really nice texture, a sort of cushion, soft, very puffy character. All of that flavoured with onions, spring onion, garlic, sautéed fish, of course, and serve with like a creole style sauce, what we call a sauce chien. Literally translated as dog sauce. No link at all with dog. It’s actually the name of a knife in the French Caribbean islands because the sauce involves a lot of chopping. 

JW: The knife that they used gave the name to the sauce rather than pounding in a pesto and mortar kind of thing. It was marketed in the 60s as the knife that is always with you, like your dog. 

JP: The sauce is tart, spicy, very fresh, all these herbs, and chillies. And so you want to really load that on your top of your fritters. It’s rich, you’ve got a bit of this residual saltiness as well from the cod. Really cool balance of acid, salty, spicy. It’s really cool.

And the Mount Martha blue mussels, is that Mount Martha on the Mornington Peninsula? I didn’t even know they had blue mussels. 

JP: There is a lot of mussel production on the peninsula, indeed. Babines is strongly influenced and inspired by French dishes and drinking culture as well. But for us, working with local produce, seasonal produce is super important and so it’s something you will see across the food and cocktail menu as well. Even the wine, if we have the choice between a French wine for equivalent quality to the Victorian wine, chances are that we will go for the local. For us, it’s very important to work with what’s around us, and it’s even more important here in Australia, especially this corner of Australia, which is literally the furthest away from the rest of the world. 

That’s really respecting that idea of terroir, isn’t it? And I think that perhaps people could have an idea that French people might want to celebrate their own produce, but it’s really a mind-set where you’re recognising where you are and using your techniques and the inspiration for the dishes, but using the local produce. I think that’s really great. 

JW: I think it’s even all through in on the food and the character aspect. I think you might have, as you said, certain products when you have appellation and when you have a wine that’s very specific to a part of France and you can’t be replicated here. More often than not nowadays it you pay a hefty price for that appellation. Jura, Bourgogne, Bordeaux, they are not entry level price. In many aspects, every region in France has their own culture of food and very often, it doesn’t even cross the border of the region. I eat very differently from someone from Burgundy, which is just the next region. I’m from Alsace. It’s a very different culture. But we do like to stick to what you have on hand when it is in season.

JP: Obviously we don’t see it now, because the economies are all linked to each other and goods are crossing the world, food culture is mostly based on what you had around you. People in the southern part of France or Southern Europe, they’re cooking with olive oil because it was available. And naturally, in the northern part of Europe, butter was more the way to go. At the end of the day, you cook and you eat what the area or the terroir gives you. 

JW: The main changes on the food menu, I think is now you can really have a proper meal, and we have started seeing more people coming in for food rather than drinks even, which is great. When you were here, you had more like bar snacks, now there’s more hot food, bigger plates as well. So that’s something we are definitely pushing and growing at the moment. 

JP: Just to go back to the local produce, we have some amazing local produce; I’m thinking about the Angus hanger steak that we have, which is pasture-fed here from Victoria. It’s literally insane here, the amazing quality and it’s just in your backyard really. In some way, it’s great because we can come with an inspiration, which in French, hanger steak is called onglet, and it’s actually a part of the beef which is very valued in French, a little more than here in Australia, but it’s quite incredible to discover produce which is right from around the corner and is such amazing quality. Better than in France, really. 

JW: That informs the dishes we will pick and try and put on the menu for sure. 

In terms of the cocktails, have they changed along the way? 

JW: Well, there’s a fair amount of new additions. There’s a couple of good favourites that come back from one year to another, but it just depends on the structure of the menu. The Marquisette is something that was on the opening menu. It just takes the role of a spitz, but overall, 80% of it would have renewed since the last two season. The format is always the same at the moment where you’ve got a section that’s very much based and informed by French Bistro culture using Australian products where we can. And then you’ve got a section with our classics, very often we won’t do most classics, just because we could make a lot of margaritas at the moment, but limes are not really at their peak, so we have to come around with a solution for all the people that want to have a margarita, and we’ve got something that’s relying on different produce at the moment. We always have a section of cocktails that’s a bit more on the exploration and a bit more on the concept side, that’s probably where we have the most fun putting it together and then a section that’s a bit more classic for those just walking through the door so they know what to expect. I think balancing that is interesting because you obviously keep that sense of experience for someone that works in hospo or for someone that’s a bit more of an insider in the industry, and you also keep that sense of the familiar and that ease of service for someone that doesn’t necessarily have all the keys and all the clues that you could have. You have to keep everyone with you rather than making them feel like they’re drinking something that they have no clue about. 

Where do you get your ideas, for example, the Fine à l’eau, where you’ve got Australian brandy, caramelised Jerusalem artichoke, dashi, honey vinegar, salted coconut, toasted peanut? That’s a list of ingredients I wouldn’t have imagined together. Where does that idea come from? 

JW: The Fine à l’eau is based on a cognac soda, Fine being the short term for fine spirit, which usually are brandy in France. Cognac and soda is a very classic cognac and water or other, because we didn’t always add sparkling water. It’s a very classic way of consuming cognac back in the days. A drink that Jules and I love is a Scotch and soda. We actually met in a Japanese restaurant back in the UK. That’s where we first worked together. We had one of the biggest Japanese whisky selections outside of Japan for many years there. That was very much the unofficial staff drink, a whiskey and soda. When we tried to put this drink together there was a lot of like Japanese-izing ingredients and influence in the drink, hence dashi. That’s one of them. Salted coconut gives you a bit more texture because typically you would have it with a flat water in France, which has a bit more texture, less refreshing but more round on the palette than sparkling water would be. At the moment of putting this drink together, Jerusalem artichokes were just in season, and they bring a really lovely, almost salted caramel character, an earthy background to the spirit. It was a merge between bits of drinking cognac in France and bits of us enjoying a brown spirit with a soda.

JP: These elements as well, the Scotch and coconut water, it’s been a bit of a classic as well. The inspiration is various, you know? You’re always mixing different elements together. 

JW: I think that shows you, when we say it’s a French concept, it’s like the root of the idea may come from a French place, or from something who grew up seeing in France, but it’s limited in any way. At the end of the day, it’s looking at what we’ve got within the state or within Australia at the moment, and what tastes good. 

JP: Making it modern as well. It’s a big part of what we’re doing here at Babines, the modern elements. It needs to be something that people are going to understand

Are you getting people from the industry coming in? 

JW: Quite a lot, yeah. Actually, I’m always really positively impressed at how much support we have had. We always have so many of your hospo bartenders and chefs coming in through the door. 

JP: The fact that we keep the kitchen open until 1 a.m. as well, very often, you see them after their shift wanting a hot meal.

JW: For the small market that we’ve touched so far, because we never went big on the opening with all the bells and whistles, there’s definitely a big amount of people that work in the industry coming in, and a lot of them are returning customers as well, so it’s great. 

JP: Amazing support from especially the cocktail industry of Melbourne, I feel like we have been very well received by so many different people who came to experience it. Extremely supportive of us. It’s really good. 

You met in the UK, but where did it all start for you both in hospitality? Have you both always been in hospitality? 

JW: Not at all for me, actually. I studied business management and I did a Gap year. I went to the UK just to learn English and just to perfect that before going back and finishing my Master’s degree. I basically found a job in hospitality. I was working in a hotel in London. I was working at the bar at night there. And I just really loved it. So I never actually went back. I kept pushing it back for the first couple of years, and eventually I thought why would I go back to study, I’ve got a job that I’m very happy with, and I decided to move into a proper cocktail bar to focus on this. I moved to a place called Rocca, at a subterranean bar called Social Lounge, which was quite famous back in the day, because it was opened by a guy called Tony Conigliaro, who had many bars in London. He had a lot of different bartenders who went through there as a training ground, essentially, and that’s way I met Jules. Jules actually used to be my head bartender there. We worked together for a couple of years, then eventually Jules moved to Paris, I took over his role, and then I left. My girlfriend is English and Australian and we moved to Melbourne for a bit of change of air. I started work at Vue de Monde, pretty much straight away after I arrived here. I was there for three and a half to four years, and then I did a little stint at Byrdi for about a year before opening here. So definitely not a hospo background. For Jules, it is quite different. 

JP: Yes. I studied hospo. Interestingly, my first love in the industry was really about the kitchen. I felt like it was always vibrant, there’s always something happening in a professional kitchen. I’m not too sure where it all started, I know that the love of food in general is something that I got for my grandmother. My grandma was older generation, she was the woman of the family, she did all the cooking. It’s really something that I didn’t find with my mum when I was younger, so it’s always been a bit of a joke. My mum’s cooking was pretty bad and when I went to my grandparents, it was always very exciting to hang in a kitchen and I really liked it. There was more crafting handmade stuff with my grandma. A love for the kitchen has always been there, but, I pleased my parents and stayed on a quiet, general, I have an economic and social science background, but quite quickly turned towards a hospitality qualification. I went to a quite good hospitality school for lycée in Toulouse, southwest France. I did a few years of qualification there with experience in various different areas, with a strong focus in kitchen and bar, but also a bit of hotel management as well. I’ve always been attracted to going overseas. I come from a family where we were so fortunate to travel a lot when I was younger, so I’ve always been interested in going overseas, discovering things, and Australia was always on the list. I travelled here the first time in 2012, just after the end of my qualification. I found my first job here, barely speaking English. It was fun. It was a great first year and a half. I did a bit of a travel around Australia as well, which was really cool. Eventually I decided to move back to Europe, to Londen, just because for Visa purposes, it was just easier. Since then, I’ve done a few trips back and forwards here in Australia for different job experiences, around like the Lucas Group, but worked as well with the guys at Dr. Morse and Bodriggy as well for a bit. Eventually, I spent a bit of time as well at Rocca, where I met Jules, as he previously mentioned, we had some great times there, amazing produce. Quite interesting to work there, a lot of learning over there. Eventually I moved back to Paris in 2019 for a short period of time. But yeah, things happened and I ended up back here in Melbourne, visiting for a wedding and doing a little course with some friends specialising in coffee. And this was just before Covid, and it turns out that Covid just made me stick here. I’m now married, you’ve got Buddy next to you as well. And the Babines project is on the way as well, so there’s no project at all to move back any time soon. Melbourne is home now.

 

How did you first start having discussions about doing something together? 

JW: I think it first started back in London, actually. We always floated the idea. Rocca is a big machine. It’s a well-oiled the machine, but it’s also a very high pressure environment and it’s a very high-volume place. I remember chatting after service with Jules about how we could make our life easier. Rocca was just too big, too high volume to make an experience that was more personable for a customer. I remember floating the idea, jokingly after a service over a beer being like, maybe we should just do something ourselves. We’ve always been really good friends ever since. Jules ended up in Melbourne and just being randomly, as he said, stuck here with COVID, without any big intention of staying longer and actually, you did until you met Von, there was no really good reason for you to stay long term here. It just kind of clicked. We thought, maybe we’ll take it back from where we left it. Jules and Von used to live just upstairs, so they actually knew the space quite well. We knew the landlord fairly well. And we knew that the space had great potential. It’s obviously really well located. Jules was working just around the corner, at Plug Nickel, so he obviously has a very good understanding of the local market and heaps of regulars already. It just seemed fitting. 

And the Melbourne public compared to London, compared to France, are there differences in the way that people approach hospitality, as customers?

JW: I think so. Yeah. would be interesting for me to go back to London or Paris now that I’ve had the experience of looking at it from a business owner’s perspective. But I think London and Paris would definitely have a much bigger market. It’s much more concentrated as well, so, more specific concepts have much more chance to work, because the market you rely on is much bigger within your area. You’ve got tourism as well which is much more permanent. I think overall, people are used to spending more money compared to the amounts of money they actually earn, and they’re more experience forward. I feel like, for good or for bad in Australia, we’ve got really high wages, and for some reason, the bulk of the market like to, comparatively, I’m talking about, maybe seek more price before quality or experience and in Australia, people are very often more happy with classic dishes and knowing what to expect, rather than trying to go and do something a bit out of their way. But I think it’s also that in Europe, you’ve got 27 countries with widely different food cultures, so in a way, it’s you have to be more open to difference because it’s part of life. You can drive the length of Victoria and you change country five times. In Australia, you don’t necessarily have this, so there’s a much bigger common ground of what a good Sunday afternoon should look like, for example. Melbourne is very eclectic in many aspects. Every suburb is very different, so it’s very hard to make a generalisation. 

JP: I agree with that a lot, actually. I feel like, one business that would work here would not work elsewhere in Melbourne. You can go to the western suburbs, and it’s like a day elsewhere, it’s really cool. But it makes it very complex on a business level. I think it’s probably the how the economy has been built as well over time, but I feel like in Europe, you’ve got much more chance to see chains and big groups of hospitality, things like that. It’s something you see a little bit less here, and I think it’s because from one suburb to another, from one state to another, Australians are actually quite different. I like it here a lot because it’s very laid back, it’s a very chilled approach, and I like the idea of being able to offer something which is great, well thought through, with a good creative mind behind, but I’m actually quite unhappy about the very formal format of it. I feel like it’s something that I really like here in Australia, I really like here in Collingwood is that the format here can be a little bit more chilled, while your product and your sense of service can still be great. People will still be receptive to that. We obviously have a little uniform now, which is really cool. It’s a thick cotton blue jacket and it works really well, just to inform who’s working and who’s not. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But summer is going to come and ultimately, I’m not too sure it’ll be adapted again, but we could imagine that, for example, we could be serving in boots and hard yakka shorts, mini shorts, and it will be fine here. People will still be receptive to what we’re delivering in terms of service, product price, and it will not shock that much. It’s definitely not something you would be able to do in France, probably even less in the UK. 

JW: But, working at Vue de Monde, that’s a very good example, because they are all about breaking that fine dining element. It’s a space that’s very impressive when you first go there, it’s on floor 55, but I feel like everybody was trying to be so friendly with everyone. I think if you ever dined there, you probably had that connection before. It’s not something you have in fine dining restaurants in France at all. I think the fact that Michelin stars are not in Australia, outside of the fact that the market is quite small tells you as well their annotation system just doesn’t apply here. The service is much more casual and friendly and real. I think that’s a great plus. Definitely something that’s nicer as an environment to work in for us. 

JP: I’m very receptive to that for sure. 

Well, perhaps with all that in mind and your experience in different countries, what would your advice be to people starting out in hospitality? Not necessarily owning a business, but it could be that, what do you need to be good at hospitality? 

JW: You need to be genuine. I think you really need to want to make genuine connection if you are front of house. I try and treat my guests like they are family. I always take time to see where they are at and try and have a good connection with everybody. It doesn’t need much, sometimes it’s a birthday and it’s a splash of sparkling, sometimes people are interested in the space, and just means taking two minutes of your time to walk them through, and spend some time with them, just having an element of connection with everyone like this, it’s important. You only come into hospo if you really want to make friends and human connection. I think attention to detail as well is another thing, that is probably more applied to the bar and to service as well, to some extent, or the kitchen, but take pride in what you do. Sometimes it’s very often overlooked. I think without even doing too much, you can really make someone’s day much better. I think it’s good to remember that. A little detail goes a long way. It’s a long hours, and it’s not an easy job, but the plus side of things, I think if you really push it, you can actually make a big difference with people in my experience. 

JP: I feel like you need to like it. You need to feel good in this environment, you need to want to genuinely deliver a great time to people. It’s not just front of house where you are actually in contact with people and you’re actually having these genuine, great connections where you really want to give the best to people, it’s also for the back of house, for the kitchen, it’s very important to remember what we’re doing.  The final element is to receive guests and make sure they are having the best time, a great experience. It can be very simple, just be friendly, enjoying the place, feeling that you’re coming in every day and having a great time, it’s important. It’s quite a demanding industry for sure, and I feel like it has changed in Australia as well. I feel like before it was a little bit easier, I feel like the cost in general was way lower. We’re talking about rent, energy, staff, goods as well. Everything was lower before, and I feel like recently we had like a really big bump up at this level. You feel like it’s hitting a lot of people. You need to be much more thorough now the way you manage your business, in some way, much more as I’ve seen it in Europe in Paris, in London, you know, where you actually have to be thorough, you have to think your concept, you have to think your processes and you have to be a good professional at the end. Generally speaking, it’s for hospitality people, but most specifically, if you want to open a business, I feel like it’s very important than you’re precise in what you’re doing. 

Well, whatever you’re both doing, you’re doing it really well, and I can’t wait to come back when you’re open and try some more of the food and the drinks. Thank you. 

Babines, 108 Smith Street, Collingwood, Melbourne