Rob Kabboord

Rob Kabboord: Last time I saw you, I said something like, “What are they going to do, close this down for COVID?”

Conversation with a chef: And then they did. Because I’d come in and spoken to you for Broadsheet at Lekker and then I came back because I really wanted to talk to you more . And we were a little bit like, “Oh, you know…” It was still March, before the time.

Should have kept my mouth shut.

You’ve done a lot since then. You’ve co-written a play, you’ve travelled the world, and even recently you were with Annie Smithers, another one of my favourites, in France and Burgundy. And you’ve moved to regional Victoria? You’ve been here a while, though.

I’ve been here close to a decade. When we last spoke, we already had the property. When we sold Merricote, we bought a property. We weren’t intending on living here. It was going to be bricks and mortar for retirement purposes. Then, in a very beautiful little sequence, our renters wanted out, or they wanted to go from a six-month lease to a monthly lease because they were looking to buy. Bronwyn did a couple of shifts with Annie and got the job. Bron just moved out. She moved up there, and in between, I was hanging out at Chancery Lane with Scott. So we moved there. We lived there while I was clocking out. I lived in the hotel and I had a very nice life. Some of those rooms are very fancy. My favourite room is on the Bourke Street side. It’s called the Marble Room. There’s three of them. There’s one in white marble, one in green marble, one in black marble. I’ve done all three on different levels. Beautiful apartments. Beautiful.

I was already technically living in the country. Then with Chancery, I just got jack of travelling. The travel started to get to me. Not that I couldn’t do it, but as a chef, you can’t do your shift and then just quickly drive to regional Victoria. It’s an hour and a half of bouncing around with kangaroos. It became work, get up, work, finish work, get up early, get home, spend two days with my wife, mow, cats, dogs, whatever else, and then back to town. I got to a stage where I was like, “Nah, I’ve got to do this smarter, not harder.”

I moved here full-time. Helped out some friends with a bakery, went to the Surly Goat for a little bit. During the Surly Goat, I met Nick Parr, the playwright. That’s a very funny story as well, because Nick came to me through a friend who went, “Man, this guy, playwright, he’s brilliant, he’s great, but he doesn’t know shit about hospitality. Help him.”

So I got given this play and I read it and I was like, “That’s not how hospitality works at all.” I had a coffee with Nick, we had lunch, and we wrote Gluttony, which was incredibly good fun to do because I could actually sit there and go, “This is what happens in kitchens, and this is how front-of-house, back-of-house relationships work.”

Was it interactive? Was it happening around the tables? How did it work?

The idea was one big table. We’ve done a couple of different formats of it. One big table, where we had actors in between paying guests. Everybody is there for the last meal of Chef Max. Chef Max is the wunderkind of Australian Melbourne dining. He’s the only guy to ever have a 20 out of 20 in the Good Food Guide, that sort of stuff. But he’s a horrible human being. It’s his last meal, he’s closing his restaurant, and you’re sitting there having your meal that I’m cooking for you while, behind the scenes, Chef Max is reminiscing, cooking, drinking, taking cocaine and doing a whole bunch of stuff that makes theatre fun and enjoyable. We had an amazing cast. We had an amazing time doing it. The first one we did at a friend’s Airbnb, in a house setting. That was kind of hard to manage. Then for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, we did it at The Lincoln. We took over that private room. We did something crazy like 18 shows in 10 days. Which was incredibly good fun, but I was tired after that. Then we did another version of it, same play but in a different setting again, at the Windsor Hotel. We did nearly a month’s worth of shows.

The thing I still like the most is that people actually sit at the table and some of the actors are already there, so they have no idea. As a guest, you have to be trusting that you’re going to be safe and have a good meal. We throw everything into it to make sure you’re on the edge of your seat from the moment the curtain rises, which is where somebody goes, “So, did I hear…?” And then the play starts. It’s a wonderful thing to do.

It’s super creative as well.

It’s fun to create food and dishes but now create food and dishes that actually sit in a theatre setting, in a theatre play, with a backstory. Why is he doing this particular dish? It’s incredibly fun, quite cathartic to come up with ideas like that.

Congratulations. It’s amazing to be part of something like that. And obviously you would have helped with shaping some of the reality.

The reality in theatre is, as long as you can make your guest believe that it’s happening. Chef Max was cooking live. One of the biggest compliments we had was, at one stage, one of the guests after a show gave us feedback like, “I can’t believe this actor cooked all that food.” They had no idea there was a full kitchen team behind the scenes.

The illusion.

So the illusion was working and worked really well. Nick and I are still talking regularly. We’re working on a part two, if you like.

Amazing. I’ll make sure I come to that.

Perhaps we’ll run Gluttony again. The problem with Gluttony is labour cost. There’s a tremendous amount of labour. We had 10 actors, a chef, a waiter, a production manager, a writer, a director. The crew to make something like that happen is pretty big. There are probably more people involved than in a three-hat restaurant for the quantity of guests that we can do. And with that comes… if it was carte blanche and we could charge a thousand bucks a ticket, no one would come. But that would cover all the bases.

The pre-production, before we opened a show, we had nearly three weeks of pre-production where those people still need to be paid. It’s not a restaurant proposition where they come and pay for a meal. The actors still need to know their lines. They need to learn, they need to know their movement. When do they get up and smack on the table? It was a very tricky idea to get up and running. The hope is that we can do it again. But I also feel economically, we’re already asking people to drop $400 on a meal and a show. It’s not crazy, but I’m also sure that people right now can’t spend $400 on a lot of other things.

It’s incredible what people can spend money on. Or a small percentage of the population can spend their money on.

Both Nick and I are happy with where it ended up. We got some great reviews, especially from the theatre critics. I think what we’re currently working on is going to be two or three actors. That will reduce the cost, reduce the running, and therefore it could have greater longevity.

Then perhaps one day, when someone listens to this podcast and goes, “Wow, I want that in New York,” I’ll travel. Why not?

Yes, please, someone in New York. Bring that on.

It’s a dining room that’s super moody, cosy, for dinner. Both of us have been doing this for 30-something years. Sixty years combined, easy. It was about making a nice space where we could have people sit down, relax, be comfortable and actually create a space where people could just sit and be. If they want to be here all day, great. Keep ordering champagne, eating, whatever you want to do. You can be here all day.

Rob Kabboord, Rühe

Or Paris. Speaking of France, you were there in June. Was it very hot when you were there?

No, I was so lucky. I was there late May, early June. The hottest it got when I was there was 26, 28. And I got out just before the big heat. It was horrendous. My family had the same heatwaves in Holland. They just lay on the sofa. You do nothing. Part of the trip was a tour of Burgundy with Jillian Francis from Tastes of Burgundy. She does that every year and I went as a sous chef to Annie.

It’s great fun. They have a masterclass, we go to markets, we cook, we eat in this wonderful château. Then the other part of that trip was a private chef gig where I cooked for a group who were having birthday celebrations. He had invited all his brothers and sisters from Singapore, Australia, Italy, all to Champagne. They drank champagne and had dinner every night.

That’s good. People say cheffing can take you places. You’re certainly a testament to that.

You have to say yes to it. You have to say yes first. And you have to be flexible, I think. You have to be able to go to those things.

Right. So that was pre-Rühe.

Actually, no. That wasn’t pre-Rühe. The concept of Rühe started probably close to six months ago now. We started having conversations, and the conversation started with Daniel. It was Daniel and Daniel. So Daniel Whelan, chef, Daniel Saligari, my business partner, was front of house. He was looking for a new chef because the other chef wanted out. He wanted to retire and be out by his 50th. I think originally we started talking about, “If you want to keep doing Italian, that’s not me. But if you ever want to do a kick-arse neo-bistro in Kyneton, we should talk further.” And then we talked further. Before I left for France, we already had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted, what it should look like, where we operate. The kitchen, for example, had a pasta boiler that I was never going to use. I needed to get rid of that and put in a nice little combi oven and then from there we could start making other things.

I went to France, came back. They had another three or four weeks of operations. They picked the date of July 1. I think June 28 was the last day as Marchesa. Then July 1 we boarded up the windows and demoed everything we didn’t want and didn’t like. It had a massive bar, not in the middle, but where table nine is. The service area was high-bench seating. We ripped out a whole bunch of stuff just to make it more what we wanted and what we envisioned would be a good, operable space.

It’s so cosy. I love it. It’s vintage, but new.

Thank you. It’s a dining room.

It is definitely a dining room.

But it’s a dining room that works great for lunch. It’s a dining room that’s super moody, cosy, for dinner. Both of us have been doing this for 30-something years. Sixty years combined, easy. It was about making a nice space where we could have people sit down, relax, be comfortable and actually create a space where people could just sit and be. If they want to be here all day, great. Keep ordering champagne, eating, whatever you want to do. You can be here all day.

With that came both of us having this desire for a little punk attitude. We wanted things not to be the same. We’ve all seen the French bistro and the French bistro curtain. So we went, “Yeah, cool, we want a bistro curtain, but it can’t be that white curtain. It needs to be something else.” Then you start talking to people who are creatives. The lady who made this, the first time we talked about it, I went, “I want a bistro curtain, but it can’t be a bistro curtain.” And she goes, “I’ll make it pojagi.” I was like, “What the fuck is pojagi?” And pojagi is a geometric Korean screen. So I started Googling it. I’m like, “Man, there’s something Mondrian-esque about it. I love that. Cool little colours.” So the pojagi is now our bistro screen.

So good. Beautiful colour palette as well.

The colour palette started with that painting.

Wow. Where is that landscape? Do you know?

No. We know the painting has been on Piper Street for the last two decades, in different shops. We know it’s Scandinavian because of the name on the back. We think Danish, maybe Swedish. We assume it’s a marshland in either of those two regions. When we saw the picture, we both were really enamoured with the colour schemes. So basically what we did was take colours out of the painting. There’s that lovely blue. We put that on the shelf. The green further back down in our service area is in there. The light blues are echoed in the napkins. The reds and oranges are all in there.

I love that. It’s so great.

It’s actually quite funny because we had the Dulux colour charts, the big one. So you stand next to it and you’re like, “Hmm, that’s Paperbark. Maybe it’s this one.” Picking colours for in here was literally, “Yeah, that matches.” Off to the paint shop, and then we ended up with the colour scheme.

That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.

We had help. I don’t think you should let two boys do creative things like this. I would have painted everything black. The lady that helped us with that has a very good eye for colour palettes and designs and cushions and little things. We wanted cushions, but then the little trim is the same colour as the other cushions. It’s little things like that. Thoughtful. I would have never thought of that. I’m very grateful we had Melissa help us with certain things.

I think because the name Rühe is calm, isn’t it?

Peaceful.

It feels like that here.

The name started with the homage to Kyneton originally. We’re going back now to 18-something, I think it was 1813, 1814, maybe 1815. A guy called Charles Ebden arrives here. He’s a sheep farmer and he basically settles where now is Carlsruhe. He names it Carlsruhe after the city where he went to university, Karlsruhe, Germany.

I had a penfriend from there once.

If you know it, Karlsruhe is a wonderful town. But Carlsruhe starts growing. I think at its absolute heyday it had about eight pubs. It was a bustling town. Then the railway came. Basically the railway, as we know it now, went Woodend, Kyneton, Malmsbury, Castlemaine. It completely bypassed Carlsruhe. For all the businesses and trades that were there, they packed up shop. Very slowly over the next hundred years or so, Carlsruhe was completely forgotten. I think the core relic is a petrol station when you get off the Calder, a CFA, a couple of houses. We both like the origin of it. Kyneton wouldn’t be here without Charles Ebden or Carlsruhe. Then when we started talking about it, we weren’t going to call our restaurant Carlsruhe. That’s silly. We both really liked Rühe. Then we put the umlaut on there to make it more punk. I’m sure it upsets Germans and I’m really sorry for taking on your language. I put umlauts where they don’t belong. You know, it’s cool, punk. It gave us a little bit of attitude with the peacefulness, the calmness.

When I spoke to you six years ago, you were talking about neo-bistro. As a concept, has that evolved over the years? What do we see of the neo-bistro here?

More, actually, than at Lekker. I think neo-bistro is still a term thrown around and kind of frowned upon because people don’t really know where to place it. You see it. It’s not always named “neo-bistro,” but there are a whole bunch of really cool places. Little Rose, that’s neo-bistro. It’s got a bit of punk, a bit of swagger. It relies on the seriousness and traditions of gastronomy but just tweaks things a little bit, throws them around a little bit.

The term neo-bistro is often used by guys that come out of gastronomy kitchens. They want to have their own gastronomic restaurant. They can’t afford it. Gastronomy is horrifically expensive. It takes a lot of labour. You have to get fancy glasses on the table. It costs a fortune. So they create these bistros where they concentrate on food and technique that is sometimes way better than the gastronomy because it’s a portion size where you go, “Yum. I am sated.” That’s bistronomy. It’s feeding people with technicalities from gastronomy. When you say to people, “I’m a neo-bistro,” my menu is really short, but it changes a lot within the seasons. There’s micro-seasons, especially up here in the Macedon Ranges. Seasons are distinct. We can go early spring, spring, late spring. We can go early summer, late summer. With each little micro-season, things come around.

Two weeks ago we were talking early spring. I was like, “Broad beans, not quite asparagus. Yes, I have seen some, but…” Then literally three weeks later: asparagus, white asparagus, broad beans, peas. All of the spring vegetables are in abundance from within the region. It’s like, cool. Full menu change because we can.

Then we just have fun with things on the menu. We do things a little out of step. That little bit of punk, that little bit of neo attitude in the bistronomy makes it fun for us in the kitchen to cook with, but also for you as a guest. The discovery takes a little bit of trust, I suppose. The threshold can be too crazy for people to come in, and we’re still bistronomy. You’re still going to have a great meal. But we can have fun and a sense of cheekiness around certain things. I’ll use the scallop dish. Potato and scallop soup, I call it. It’s not really a soup. It has a potato cream, a potato consommé, textures of potatoes, scallops. It’s liquidy. You need a spoon. So, scallop and potato soup. I think with that sort of stuff, tongue in cheek, we can have fun in a not-quite-serious dining room without pushing friendships.

As a guest, you still come to me. I’m still going to take money. We still need to have that transactional part. I’m going to have to feed you, make sure you leave having had a good time and come back. But at the same time, I can do things where you go, “Oh, I didn’t see that one coming,” or, “Really? Rosella flower? Gross. They’re so sour.” In the right hands, they’re delicious with lamb.

The neo-bistro for me personally has always been very close to my heart because I like refinement, but I know I can’t do what I did at Chancery Lane. My kitchen here is three by two. I don’t have ten waiters for 20 guests. So there are things that we can and can’t do. I also feel sometimes people feel better if they can put you in a box.

Are you contemporary? Yeah, we are contemporary. Are we local? Absolutely. All the produce is 80, 90 per cent Victorian. I like cooking from Victoria. There’s amazing produce here. Within 50 square kilometres there’s stunning produce. But am I full Victorian? No, I’m a Dutchman. I like having Dutch things, Dutch words or Dutch techniques. Eventually you tick all these boxes and: neo-bistro. Tick. Boom. That’s it. I’m going to hold that banner up high and be proud of it.

Who’s coming? What’s the demographic?

It’s wild. Everyone. We’re lucky. Daniel has been working in Kyneton for a cheeky 15 years. He worked next door at Midnight Starling. He worked with Annie when the bistro was here. He’s worked at some super great places around the place. I think he has his own little following, and that comes with the wine list and some spectacular wines that we have, Victorian range, whatever we have. So part of that is locals and regulars.

And you have a following.

And I have my little cult. So people out of that demographic come. Then there are people who are just curious. Kyneton doesn’t have anything like this. If we’re in Brunswick, there could be a few of these fluttering around. So those people come out of the woodwork. Then central Vic hospitality people know Daniel and myself, so they come. The other night was actually a “fill my cup” because it was a great surprise. Friends of mine rang me and went, “Hey, can you do a table of six?”

I’m like, “Not really. Yeah, sure, but you’ll have to do tasting menus.” Monday night’s my last day of the week. I have to cobble this together a little bit, but as long as you don’t do à la carte, we can do it. Then the guys from Noble Rot, an O.My, were my table of six. I went, “You bastards.” Pressure, pressure. No pressure. But they just showed up. Michael Ryan came down from Beechworth just to check us out and say g’day.

The demographic here is: welcome all. Welcome everyone. And I don’t think… how is this, week five, Jo? I haven’t got a demographic.

Week five. I love that I’m in at the beginning.

Give me another five weeks, ten weeks. And who cares what the demographic is?

It’s just interesting, because you were saying it’s a small town here. But obviously it’s a destination diner as well as for people around here. It’s always interesting to know. But I can’t believe how easy it is to get here. That train, I loved it.

This is the first time on the train for you?

To here, yeah. I’ve certainly hung out in Kyneton a bit and we’ve driven here and stayed here, but it’s so relaxing. It’s so easy. It’s just over an hour from Southern Cross. I feel like I work for V/Line.

We can have a sponsored podcast.

Sponsored by V/Line. I’m going to work on that. It was like a little adventure coming out here. It’s so great. And then I can have maybe a glass or two of wine at lunch and not even worry about it. Hop on the train and get back if I don’t end up in Bendigo by getting the wrong train.

I’ve said this to a couple of friends in town. “Where do we stay?” Sunday lunch, we do long lunch. We’re open from 12 to 5. Come by train.

There are Ubers and taxis in Kyneton as well if you don’t want to walk up from the train station. Don’t be lazy. It’s a small walk. It’s a lovely little town to walk into. And you pretty much walk through the heart of the town. It’s easy enough to have lunch, relax, take it easy.

So you’re doing the Friday lunchtime once a month?

If I can get to the stage that it’s open seven days a week, lunch and dinner, absolutely. In the true sense of the Parisian bistro, it’s nearly always open. There’s barely a lock on the door. But sensibility says I can’t work seven days a week, Daniel can’t work seven days a week, my staff can’t. And I do not want them to work seven days a week. So we start somewhere. We figured Friday, Saturday night is bread and butter. We talked about Friday lunch, Saturday lunch, and I was like, “Really?” Because that means we have to be here. There’s pressure to be ready. You need to have staff here, be organised and all that sort of stuff. Let’s just do one Friday lunch a month. That way we can dip our toes in the water. Sunday lunches are great. People like a long, lazy lunch.

Then I think the surprise packet for us was we toyed with either Thursday night or Monday night. We had a look around town and there’s not heaps open on Monday night. Monday nights here are manic. Monday nights are the biggest mixed bag of marbles, and they’re great fun. They’re busy, great fun. So we set out with that as the jump-off board. So far, Friday lunches are full. They’re great, they’re busy. That means for us we can entertain the idea of maybe doing it twice a month. But then maybe that takes away the magic of the once-a-month Friday lunch. From there we can tinker. As I said, we’re five weeks in. This is the start of week five. We’re both settling. It’s doing its thing.

We’ve both forgotten that it takes a bit more than just service. We need to do the back-of-house and all the boring stuff as well. But that’s part of the business. We’re now at a stage where we’re like, “Oh, cool. Settled. Make sure we have the staff.” Now we can start phase two and start making things easier for everyone, or easier and better for everyone, and then grow. Open up an extra day here, open up an extra service there, and then five years from now, seven days a week.

I’m going to sit back and relax and eat your food when you’re ready.

Rühe, 58a Piper Street, Kyneton