Michael Conlon

Hi Michael, how are you? It’s really nice to talk to you. We’re sitting in the dining room of O’Connell’s in South Melbourne. This building’s been here for a long time. Do you know how old it is?

We’re coming up to 150 years.

That’s amazing, isn’t it? I really like thinking about, well, not the ghosts of venues, but who’s been here before? I always think, if the walls could talk, there’d be so many stories.

It’s a really long time. I think some businesses struggle with that. I think the ghosts of a previous venue is a really good way to frame it. Sometimes there are operators that come in and fumble the bag a little bit, and the next business that comes in has to recover. You can really lose really cool establishments just from that. 

Hotel pubs in Australia certainly have that aspect of being part of a community, and so people have certain expectations. You’re renovating O’Connell’s now, and getting it all ready to open, what things do you have to take into consideration when you move into a neighbourhood?

You have to take a lot into consideration. Pubs are a cornerstone in the places they’re situated. You have to represent them in the right way. Melbourne is in a different position to most other parts of Australia, where we can have those different levels of dining in those cornerstone pubs. So that’s a big part of it; making sure that people can come here during the week, get a quick feed, get a pint, get out of here. But then they can come back on the weekend and sit in this beautiful dining room and have an elevated experience and just be able to walk home.

You’re part of a group that knows a lot about running good hotels and pubs. How many venues have you worked in?

We originally had Hobson’s Bay Hotel, which was great. Three level dining, which had a lot of complications, but a beautiful rooftop. And then more recently, we have the Flying Duck Hotel, which is great: cheerful, backyard boozer, they like to call it, with its leafy green backyard area. Good for good times. I’m very, very proud of that business. When you talk about places that have had ghosts before, I’m sure that was one of them. A lot of different owners through there. To really revitalise that pub with the other great pubs in that area: Mt Erica, the Orrong, the Prahran Hotel, all those pubs in that area are great. It’s such a great melting pot of competition over there. So for that to stand up and really do well, I’m so proud of that. Everyone’s got a story about the duck. I hadn’t heard of it before we took over. And then all of a sudden, every single person would be like, oh, I’ve got this story about the duck.

You mentioned revitalising, and I can smell fresh paint. What’s happening here?

It has been quite substantial. We opened up the centenary room, opened up the main bar area so that it all flows and connects. I think a problem with big pubs like this, they can be tacked on and a bit pokey. Opening those spaces up just brings that dining into one central space. With the new carpet, new upholstery throughout the venue and we wanted to make this dining room feel different, make it feel like it’s a step up, like you’re walking into a restaurant. But you just come through the pub, which I think is really cool.

It’s a lovely room. Are these your artworks now that are on the walls?

We had these commissioned.

They’re really beautiful. They’re so Australian feeling, aren’t they? Really great landscapes.

That’s the idea with the menu: Outback Australiana vibe, you know, that land to sea connection, which I think is so strong for the east coast of Australia.

That was a great segue. Tell me about the menu.

It was a good segue. I grew up on the Gold Coast. I’ve come from a background next to the beach and growing up. As a young boy I was into surfing, and I worked at a restaurant. It’s not there anymore, but it was literally on Burleigh Beach, and I remember we used to store our surfboards underneath. It’d hit 3 o’clock, service would be over, and then we’d be out surfing. So, I’ve always had a strong connection with the water, and then further along in my career, I started to cook over open fire, and learned a little bit more about that. As you can see, the Josper in the background is a big part of the menu here. We are focussed around Australian themes: great quality steaks, good Australian Wagyu. And that connection with suppliers that we always try to try to do really well in Melbourne; having that really strong supply connection. It’s the cornerstone of all the food here.

Is the menu different in the dining room as opposed to the pub, the bar?

I’ve never liked that. If I want to eat a big steak out on the terrace or in the main bar, I want to do that. I don’t want to feel like I’m restricted. I’ve always struggled with that. Why can’t I get the steak here?

Is there a pressure to have things like parmas and fish and chips on the menu?

I wouldn’t say a pressure. That’s not a pressure for me at all. Sometimes as a chef, you have these delineation lines that you can’t go past. There are imaginary lines that we set for ourselves. I have no problem with that. If I was making kebabs on Bell Street, out of a little truck, I’d make the bread myself, I’d cut the cucumbers fresh every day, I’d skewer the meat. That doesn’t change for me. I bash the schnitzels, I crumb the schnitzels, I make the chips. There’s still that really strong connection with being a chef I think people can lose when you talk about, oh, you’re going to get a Parma on the menu. We can do it really well.

I shouldn’t have said it like that, you’re right. It is a neighbourhood pub, and there’s people that want that, and then there’s other people that want to come and have the big steak.

Totally. That’s all part of it. I’m trying really hard to get a dry ageing program started as well. So we can do dry ageing steaks out the back. There’s a lot of little ideas that I’ve got that can really come together. That’s the best part about a neighbourhood pub; I can have that real connection with people on the front lines and meet them at the door and even when we’re sitting up here, people are walking past every day, poking their heads in, it’s really cool.  I love that genuine connection with the people that are around you.

Pubs are a cornerstone in the places they’re situated. You have to represent them in the right way. Melbourne is in a different position to most other parts of Australia, where we can have those different levels of dining in those cornerstone pubs. So that’s a big part of it; making sure that people can come here during the week, get a quick feed, get a pint, get out of here. But then they can come back on the weekend and sit in this beautiful dining room and have an elevated experience and just be able to walk home.

Michael Conlon, O’Connell’s Hotel

Is it a big menu?

I wouldn’t say it’s a huge menu. It’s not particularly large or particularly small. The kitchen that we have here is incredible. The generations of great chefs that have worked here have really done a good job of keeping the pieces together and accumulating a lot of cool stuff. It’s a massive kitchen. I think that we can execute really high-level food.

Is there a possibility of doing a few courses for people if they want to come here and sit for a long time? Can they work their way through the menu?

Definitely. I’d love to do a tasting menu and some initiatives like that. The menu is made to be shared. It’s made to be enjoyed with other people. Some stars on the menu are the beautiful scarlet prawns cooked over the, in the Josper, served with macadamia butter and grilled seafood, Morton Bay bugs. 15 years ago, I helped a friend open a crab restaurant. Yeah, and I discovered Old Bay spice and we served it in the bag with clarified butter. Here we make old bay seasoning style with outback wattle seed and bush tomato. That gets lacquered over the bugs as they’re getting roasted in the Josper.

Will you be changing the menu seasonally?

I don’t ever like to overhaul the entire menu. I think if you strip it all back, you lose what makes it good. You have to have those pillars that we can play around with garnishes on a burrata or a raw seafood dish can change. You can get a really stunning burrata in Melbourne year round. So let’s make that really good and then let’s change the garnish. In summer it’s tomatoes, maybe in winter we can go to a pickled mushroom.

What about the wine program and beer? Is wine a big thing here at O’Connells?

We have a beautiful temperature controlled cellar sitting behind you there that’s full of wine. The guys work pretty closely with suppliers to get some Australian stock. When I set up the Flying Duck, I noticed that we put a lot of international wines and a lot of European wines in there straight away. I think Australians, especially Victorians, love drinking Australian wine. I think that that’s our go-to during the week. I always want to support Australian vineyards and winemakers, because they’re the ones that can tell us the stories.

I always love it if there is a story behind produce or a wine or beer. What will you have on tap here?

On tap, we’ll have a draught, everyone’s got to have draught. Great Northern, Bailter. All the big ones: Stone and Wood, Guinness. But then there’s an independent brand that I love, Bonehead Brewery. They’re in Kensington. Those guys make great beers. I used to live just around the corner from them. I called them up and asked if they put beer in kegs and they do. It’s great to work with people like that. That’s really cool too, when you can make those relationships and build off that with someone else that maybe wasn’t expecting it.

When you’re opening a new place, do you already have some staff you bring from other venues, or is it a completely new team?

It’s tough because what makes the old venue or the one that’s currently running good might be a couple of those valuable team members that we take to the new place. It’s a juggling act. Realistically, we prepare for it 12 months in advance and think about who to take and what that will look like? Getting those people that are already there rolling into positions where they can do more and contribute more to the business and then slowly moving those other members across. We have hired a new venue manager and he is fantastic. He’s an Irishman, ironically, in an Irish pub. I interviewed him on St. Patrick’s Day. The Holy Trinity, right? I brought a couple of chefs over from the Flying Duck who’ve been working with me for probably six years. It’s good to see those guys progress and get better and gain momentum. Those parts of the job are really fun. I like organising the team and then watching everyone succeed, or, if there are difficulties, getting past those things with them. That’s one of the better parts of running the business.

I’ve been talking a lot lately about the front of house and back of house, and how in a lot of places now, there’s no longer a divide, which is great. When I was working in front of house, there was a definite divide between kitchen and front of house. What are some strategies you have for bringing the team together and getting that sense of cohesion and support for one another?

When I was working at the Duck, and I was the head chef there for a period of time, and eventually I looked at myself, looked at the business, and I knew I wanted to do more. I wanted to understand it more in depth. I stepped back from the kitchen and coordinated a lot of events. I did some wine training and I worked front of house. I diversified myself. I’ve always been someone who leads by example and does those things. I think the guys who have seen that progression in me appreciate it even more because now I have no excuses because I’ve seen it from the other side, quite literally with them, side by side. I think those types of examples are really cool for the team just to see you be a different person. Diversifying and finding yourself as an individual is really important in hospitality. I think all chefs would like to try being a waiter. It is a lot of fun putting on that little mask, going out and doing that little play.

And then it’s good to know the stories from the chef and to really know the dishes, isn’t it?

If the chefs aren’t coming out from behind the pass to talk to the diners, then it’s great if the front of house feel really confident in the dishes. Things have really progressed. I went to Brae a couple weeks ago when they did the pop-up with Le Doyenné. Those guys, they’re just so good. Dan comes out and he does some service as well. It’s so good to see that at that level of dining. It’s very inspiring.

Michael, you mentioned surfing when you were growing up. What made you decide to be a chef?

From an early age, I used to love baking. I was introduced to baking pretty early. I remember I’d go to high school and on the weekend I would bake 30 cookies and I’d wrap them all up and give them out to people and see the enjoyment. I used to bake with my dad. He was dyslexic. He would try to read me cooking books. That was a great bonding moment. That’s what got me started. Then that boom of cooking was really taking over. It was on TVs and in households, and I jumped on that, and one thing led to another, and I just kept going and going.

That’s all quite different to stepping into a kitchen, especially at the bottom, to baking for your classmates. What did you love about the kitchen and the atmosphere in the kitchen?

I feel like I grew up in the kitchen in a lot of ways. I was a very reserved person. I was very, very quiet. It took me a long time to come out of that shell and feel confident. I had that little bit of imposter syndrome. Once I got the confidence that I was a good chef, then it was about becoming a good leader, which was like a switch that flipped within me and changed everything. I still love cooking, and I just love thinking about food and thinking about different ways that things go together, and the practicality of that when you then apply that into a kitchen is the next level.

Where do you get inspiration? Have you got lots of cookbooks or do you look online?

I do have lots of cookbooks. I have some really old niche cookbooks as well: a Larousse from 1969, for example. I just got the name of book last night, that came in the mail yesterday, the new one. I’m excited to jump into that one. I like to stay one foot on trend and one foot with the oldies and with those old style cookbooks. I’ve got a whole stack of Keith Floyd cookbooks, which are like treasures to me.

When you’re looking through them, what is it that appeals to you? What jumps out and you think, I want to do that, or do you build on things you’ve seen?

I think the regions is what I take out of it the most. French cooking is great because there’s a real pattern of technique there, and then it’s overlaying some of those patterns into what we have here, working with local produce. Once you overlay some of those techniques from the recipe books, I think that’s where it all kind of makes sense for me.

Do you take notes on what do you?

I’ve never kept a notebook. And I religiously tell everyone to keep one. But I’ve always struggled. One of my best friends was cooking with me throughout most of my career. He was religious about it. He’s got six notebooks all alphabetised with all the recipes that we have. I will literally text him, can you give me that recipe that we used to do? Because I’ve forgotten it. Staff will ask, is there a recipe for this? No, we’re going to make a recipe now. It’s not like I’m ever pulling out something I did six or seven years ago and saying, let’s rehash this. I know the process I want to do, and then I’ll make the recipe from there.

I guess that ties in a little bit to you mentioning discovering your leadership style. It sounds like you’re probably someone that gets alongside your team and shows rather than tells.

I think that’s the best way to build trust because it’s not easy working in a kitchen. When someone’s shouting at you, it’s 50 degrees, and you have to do this thing, it can get really hard, and you have to build that trust with people so that they will listen to you in the kitchen and they’ll follow exactly what you’re saying. Because sometimes it is that important. I think being next to the guys and having the same struggles as them is really important.

The other aspect of stepping up into the head chef or executive chef role is the money or business side of things. How easy was that for you? Creativity is one thing, but you’ve got a lot of constraints. How did that work for you?

I’m really lucky. I have great support with my business partner, Brenton, and he’s gone through a lot of those issues before, so having that person in my corner is great. He also has a cooking background as a baker. I wouldn’t say it came naturally to me, but I don’t think it was too hard to get a hold of. It did help that I had that moment of stepping away from the kitchen and being able to regroup and go, okay, let’s add some other knives to the kit, and let’s figure out what other things I can use in my arsenal in the kitchen to make myself better.

Will you be spread amongst venues, or will you mainly be here?

No, for the time being, I just want to be here. I really just want O’Connell’s to get off the ground, and for everyone to come and enjoy it, and to see everyone’s beautiful faces, and everyone coming through. The team at The Duck know what they’re doing. They’re great at what they do. It makes my job a lot easier to be able to step away because I’ve got those people supporting me.

I was going to say, what are you most looking forward to with opening, but it sounds like you just want to see everyone here?

Yeah, honestly, seeing everyone come through, being in the thick of it, heaps of dockets deep and being in the weeds is a lot of fun too. The builders have done such a great job here. We just have to keep carrying it through with everyone doing their job and we’ll do really well.

Michael, I usually end with this question: what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?

Keep your head down. Keep trying. Every day can feel the same. But eventually, once you get to the end of it, it really opens up and cooking gets to a point where you really start to enjoy it. That’s the best part of it.

O’Connell’s Hotel, 407 Coventry Street, South Melbourne