Matt McConnell

Hi, Matt. Congratulations on 20 years of Bar Lourinhã. That’s huge.

It’s massive. We’ve really launched into this year, saying that quite a lot, and each time now I’m going, it’s really great, but I also feel incredibly old when I say it as well. It’s like a milestone birthday, turning 40 or 50. It’s a great achievement, but oh, my gosh, how did I get here?

Well, we can discuss how you got here. I was reading about the life changing trip you made to Spain in the nineties and that it sparked the idea for Bar Lourinhã. What do you still hold with you from that trip?

So much. And the trip would never have happened, if there wasn’t the three or four year period before that, where we left Melbourne. We’d always been living and working in Melbourne. We’d done a lot of trips to Europe, but we left Melbourne to go and live in Queensland and work with an amazing couple of guys. I got a greater sense there of cooking produce straight from the fishermen and straight from the farmer. I discovered really great connections with suppliers, which, in Melbourne, before I left, I had only had a little bit of that. That really got me hooked and cemented what I loved about cooking. When it was time to come home, I wasn’t sure what I was going home to and what we were going to do? Jo’s a photographer by trade. We wanted to do something simple, but exactly what we weren’t sure. We’d fallen in love with Spain before, spent a lot of time in Italy and Greece as well. We went on this trip, and within about two weeks of being in Spain on that trip, which lasted nearly the whole year, we knew exactly what we wanted, and it was what we’ve got here at Bar Lourinhã: a nice, long bar, beautiful food, simply cooked, and really warm hospitality. Putting all those pieces together sounds easy, but it’s actually quite challenging sometimes. We were on this journey, and we had arrived in Valencia, in the south of Spain, and I was writing like crazy: ideas, all the food we had, offal, snails, can I get this back home in Melbourne? We’ve got a recipe that I wrote in Seville, which we still cook to this day. That’s 20 years ago and it has been on the menu ever since and people love it. It is quite affirming at the 20 year mark to think, I wrote 21 years ago in a little apartment in Seville on a 42 degree day. Even the structure of the menu was inspired by different places.

We went into Portugal. And that’s when this whole other thing developed. There are so many similarities, but there are so many differences. The one thing that tied it all together was the style of hospitality; this incredible warmth which we loved, and thought was a little bit lacking in Melbourne. We also believed that we also lacking really high quality food in a casual bar setting. We come from a pub culture, and a lot of pubs weren’t offering really interesting and really delicious food. We saw that as our fit. We were on a bus from Lisbon to Peniche, on the coast, and we went through a town called Lourinhã. We thought it was a beautiful name with a beautiful cursiveness to it, and it really rolled off the tongue. The thing that we loved about it the most was that it didn’t scream Spain, and it didn’t scream Portugal. We never wanted to be pigeon holed as one or the other. We love the Mediterranean. But we just thought Bar Lourinhã, that’s it. We actually had the name within about two or three months of the trip and then we just started piecing together all the pieces of the puzzle.

What was the reception 20 years ago when you opened?

It was pretty good, actually. The city was really ripe for more food. There’d been a pretty good development in bar culture. There were some great little bars that had opened up whilst we were living up in Queensland, and I just think the food was a little bit behind. We had great establishments that had been here for quite some time, but it was really just a blossoming time. I had worked at the Hairy Canary, about a decade before, which was one of the pioneering little all night eateries in the city, along with a couple other businesses. Melbourne was really ready for it. It was a bit of a ghost town up this end as well. There weren’t that many businesses like there are now, and we just slotted into our beautiful little spot at number 37. We had a good response to begin with, and then had a review, even back in those days, a review means make or break. And it was a good review. Not amazing, but, the writer really got us and what we wanted to do, and really explained it well. From there, it grew. We were a no bookings place. We wanted people to come in any time of day, have a drink, have a drink and a nibble, have the full dinner, have a pre-theatre, post theatre, and we just really wanted that accessibility that we loved about travelling through Spain and Portugal, where you could drop into a place, you didn’t have to book three months in advance and where you could get really great quality products, service, drinks. That was our ethos; having that accessibility.

The specials are probably only around for about three or four weeks, so it’s great to have that little extra card on the side where we can actually play with things that you can’t always get hold of. We’re really driven by the stimulus around us and the farmers, as well, that we deal with within about an hour away from the city, are growing the most amazing organic produce. They care for the environment, they care for their customers, and it’s really beautiful to work with people like that.

Matt McConnell, Bar Lourinhã

There are a couple of threads I wanted to pick up on, from things that you’ve said, and maybe first for the food. It sounds as though you’re saying that whole Mediterranean way is not so much what you’re eating, but how you’re eating. When people come to Bar Lourinhã, what is the food and how should they eat it?

The food is designed around how you would eat in Spain and Portugal, but we roam the Med for products and inspiration. In Spain and Portugal, you’ll start with little bites to eat; tapas or petiscos. You can have really, really great little nibbles in that selection, which we really love doing. We’ve always got about six on the menu, plus another three or four. We do daily specials as well. And then we roll into larger plates designed to share, called raciones. These you can share, or you can have them on your own. We don’t really mind, but if you want to get into it, most people will go in and just go hard and get a few plates for the table and really dig in and share. The raciones section of the menu is comprised of a lot of dishes that have just kept coming back over the 20 years. Sometimes they have a little tweak, depending on different things. They’re all seasonal, and then we use our specials as a launching pad for new ideas and things that are in season. Puntarelle has just come into season the last couple of days. I saw one at the market, used it at home, and thought I could do something pretty interesting and semi-Portuguese with some beans and punzarelle, and all of a sudden, I’ve got something on the menu that I’ve never used before, and it’s working really well. The specials are probably only around for about three or four weeks, so it’s great to have that little extra card on the side where we can actually play with things that you can’t always get hold of. I’ll get a phone call from my fish guy: We’ve got beautiful, fresh mullet roe, which only comes in a couple of times a year and did we want some? So, we made a bottarga for the whole year, about two weeks ago, in house. We’re really driven by the stimulus around us and the farmers, as well, that we deal with within about an hour away from the city, are growing the most amazing organic produce. They care for the environment, they care for their customers, and it’s really beautiful to work with people like that. It really takes me back to when I was in Queensland again.

That’s so typical of eating in Mediterranean countries. I lived for a year in the south of France. Coming from New Zealand, I loved the way that they approached food which was at that stage quite different. In France when the asparagus was in season, it was a real celebration. We’re so used to everything being available all the time in supermarkets that we can lose that seasonal joy of eating, and, as you say, when something’s only there for four weeks, you just absolutely love it and just have it then.

Absolutely. I think that’s definitely one thing that Melbourne is great at: our market culture. I think market cultures give us that seasonality in real life and in real time. The convenience of the supermarkets will always be there. We’re not going to get rid of them, but having another option to the supermarket is really special. We went to so many markets on that trip. It was ridiculous. The most wonderful things about markets in Spain and Portugal is they’ve got little corner bars, they’ve got little cafes, and they’ve got really amazing restaurants selling produce that’s sold right in front of you as well. I think Melburnians get it as well.

The other thread that I wanted to pick up on was hospitality. You and Jo do that so well. From what I’ve read, this has been a training ground for a lot of people that have gone on to do their own thing. Do you think hospitality is innate, or can people learn it?

There’s a little bit of both. But I think the drive has got to come from within. If you’re not driven by the joys of hospitality, I think it’s pretty hard to get it. There’s a robotic style of service out there, and there were actually robots for a while, as well. But I don’t think you can replace that real joy of hospitality when you see the look on someone’s face, when they’ve tasted a grape variety that they’ve never heard of before, and they go, Wow, that’s just opened up so much more to me, or tasted some food or a product that they’d never seen or heard, or been adventurous enough to try. Challenging customers is really great. You get such great joy. I’ve been doing it for 35 years and I still really love it. The physical side of cooking is quite difficult now, but I still love that we have people coming here and having such a great time. It’s such a combined team effort to actually get that to happen. We’ve put a lot of emphasis in our team and how important it is, how every single person in this place has an impact on our customers’ experience. From the kitchen hand all the way through to the front of house team, and just having that connection between the two teams, is what really, really makes it happen. There are massive challenges within staffing and the level of training of staff in Australia. That’s our biggest fight, I think, is just finding people who want to do it, and who can get it, and can understand that it’s not about us, it’s not about themselves, it’s about the customer and putting the customer first.

I think you obviously model that for your staff. When I came in, just before, the way that you are so warm, and you talk to the staff that were starting off, starting off and getting things ready, and when you were doing the handover in the kitchen. That’s where it starts, isn’t it, how the owner or head chef interacts with their team is the base, isn’t it?

Yes. It is a challenging dynamic running a kitchen. There are so many aspects that are completely out of your control sometimes. So it’s a matter of being able to control as much as you can, and then figuring out what you do when the fisherman sends the wrong prawns, or all the number of things that can possibly go wrong. Breadth of experience is really hard to try and explain, but everything’s done for a reason. We don’t waste things. We hate throwing things in the bin. We’ve always been really conscious of using the whole animal, and utilising everything right down to fish heads, even the roe that we dry. We do so much in house, and that’s a great learning curve for a lot of young chefs. We always hope that people come in at a certain level, and when they leave, they want to go on and do something bigger and better. That’s our ultimate goal for people who come through a door, and we’ve seen quite a few, which is great.

Melburnians appreciate institutions, places that have lasted for a long time. But at the same time, there’s a lot of shiny, shiny in Melbourne. Do you think that in this current climate, it’s riskier to remain consistent than to constantly change to fit the trends?

Consistency is our driving force. Whenever people say, Oh, you’ve been in business 20 years, that’s amazing. It’s not really amazing. It’s actually a daily grind to provide consistent product and service. We have the saying that what we put on the plate yesterday will be exactly the same today. It’ll be exactly the same tomorrow, and that’s just that little seed that you plant that we have to do this exactly the same every time. Consistency is what we aim for. It’s really hard when you see the city, and how it’s evolved. We’ve got seen it go through so many different stages, and booms, and slumps. We’re not trend driven, so we’re not really reliant on having to follow what everyone else is doing, or on what certain parts of the industry are doing. We’re also surrounded by some really great operators as well. We acknowledge that competition is really tough. It goes through waves. But I think the city’s in a really great place at the moment. It has a really good feel to it. There has been so much negativity over the last few years about the CBD, but I think it’s a wonderful place to live, work, eat, drink, go to shows, sport. There are so many different aspects of the city that are so great. We’ve got incredible galleries as well. And just to have our cute little bar tucked into the middle of it and being able to do our offering, it’s really satisfying.

Has your idea of success, or of what it means to be successful as a hospitality operator in the city changed over the 20 years?

Probably having kids changes your perspective of what’s important and what’s driving you? But I think and not wanting to keep coming back to it, but it’s just about providing consistency. I’m pretty satisfied at the end of the week, even if it’s been a quiet week. I’m as satisfied that we’ve done a really great job, as when it has been a really busy week. We’ve had quite a full-on year this year. It has been quite incredible. Tourism has seen an interesting increase as well. The tennis this year was amazing. It’s lovely having people through. We open seven days now, which we never used to and allows us to see the city in a different light. Sundays has become a real locals day for people who live in the city and who have become regulars on a Sunday. Mondays see corporates and people just dropping in and hospitality people on their days off. You see the city more from day to day, through the week, and it’s good. It’s a good city.

Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?

Not really. I went to university after high school, but I worked in kitchens, as a kitchen hand, while I was doing that. While I was at high school, I worked in a pastry kitchen, and a bakery, and a supermarket. But it wasn’t really until I got to the end of my second year at Uni, and I realised I was enjoying the kitchen a lot more. I took a year off thinking I could always go back. I jumped into an apprenticeship instead of doing my third year of my degree, and that was it. I was pretty much hooked straight away. It was instant: that’s what I wanted to do, and I was never going back to Uni.

What was it do you think that hooked you? Was it the creativity of cooking? Was it the vibe of the kitchen?

The creative side was something that I struggled with initially, but something that I was really interested in. I did a lot of reading, a lot of going down rabbit holes about different cultures. It was more that I loved starting a day and completing lists, serving customers, doing the pack down and thinking, we achieved so much as a team today. That was really quite amazing, and thinking: I’m part of that team as well, even though I was right at the bottom. I saw that there was a future there that I could actually contribute to teams, and maybe one day I’d be able to lead a team, as well. That was quite a powerful little turning point when I felt that.

In terms of leading, is that something that came quite naturally to once it was time to step up? Did you have to think about your leadership style?

I was conscious of the different mentors or chefs that I’d worked under and what I believe worked and what didn’t. I took time trying to figure that out. It doesn’t always come naturally, I think. But then there’s other times when you’re just so comfortable and in your space of knowing what you need to achieve and how to get the best out of people at certain times that kicks in. Probably around the 10 year mark, that’s where you’ve really got your stamp, I think.

You’re doing quite a few things this year to celebrate 20 years. One of them was putting out your second book.

That’s our second edition. The first one had a different name and a different cover, so it’s been rebranded with our name on it, which is fantastic. It says Lourinhã all over the front, which is really great. The book has been really successful. It’s just great opening it up and showing someone in the kitchen, Hey, look, I wrote this 20 years ago, and it’s in paper, so let’s follow this recipe. Every now and then, I’ll think, what special can we put on that we haven’t done for a while, and I’ll go through the book, and I’ll send a message to one of the chefs, saying, have a look at page 57. We’re going to give that a go tomorrow. Let’s get everything ordered and prepped up. It’s fun. But there’s also quite a bit of background information on Jo and I and our passions and how we found dishes or how we created dishes. Some things were just accidents, that we came across when we missed a bus or caught a train to a different place, then all of a sudden, we discovered something amazing. There’s a bit of history to that book as well.

How lovely. Well, with all that in mind, and your experience, and I can see that you still are very curious about food, and about learning, and sharing. What would your advice be to a young person starting out?

Just dive in, don’t hold back. It’s pretty easy to sit on the fence, but it’s hard to get to where you want to get to if you do that. Give it everything you’ve got. Go down the rabbit holes, read lots, travel, and if it’s what you want to do, don’t hold back. I think that’s really important. Don’t let anything or anyone hold you back. If that’s what your dream is, then you’ve got to go for it without a doubt. The challenges are there. They’re all documented. We all know how hard it is. But don’t use that as a reason to stop. Keep going and going and going. It’s a wonderful world, the food world. It really is a great place to be in. And you can make some people happy along the way.

Bar Lourinhã, 37 Little Collins Street, Melbourne