Page 14 - foodservice magazine June 2019

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DINING
THE RESTAURANT THAT NEVER SLEEPS
BUTCHERS DINER IN MELBOURNE IS PROFOUNDLY POPULAR, ESPECIALLY WITH THE CITY’S HOSPITALITY WORKERS. WHY? ASIDE FROM ITS SUPERB STEAK SANDWICHES, CHARCOAL GRILLED OX TONGUE AND DUCK HEART SKEWERS, AND DRY-AGED CHEESEBURGERS WITH SNAP-CRISP BACON, IT’S ALSO OPEN 24/7. NICK BUCKLEY SPEAKS TO CO-OWNER CON CHRISTOPOULOS AND CHEF AND CO-OWNER STEVE LICHTER ABOUT HOW THEY RUN THE PART-BUTCHER, PART-RESTAURANT, WHICH HASN’T CLOSED SINCE IT OPENED.
It’s 3am. Maybe you’ve just finished scrubbing down the kitchen or polishing the bar top. You’re hungry, but the bright fluorescence of international fast food chains seems a poor reward after a tough service.
But at the top of Bourke Street in Melbourne is Butchers Diner, and waiting for you is a steak from Cape Grim, which has been carved from the whole beast in house.
Whether you want a blood sausage and devilled egg roll or a Coney Island chilli dog, Butchers Diner is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But it’s more than just a late night grill, it’s a functioning butcher that supplies top-shelf meat to Melbourne’s European Group venues, which include City Wine Shop, Siglo, Supper Club, Spring Street Grocer, Kirk’s Wine Bar and French Saloon.
Initially the space was acquired out of necessity by European Group co-owner Con Christopoulos to diffuse a back-of-house war. A commissary kitchen located behind his Spring Street Grocer was being shared between a group of gelati makers and Simon Poole, Christopoulos’s in-house butcher.
“Gelati and a bloody butchery don’t quite go. I’ve got these passionate Italians going, ‘Where’s my spoon? Where’s my this? Where’s my that?’ and then they’ve got to sanitise everything over again. So I promised I’d get the butcher guys out,” says Christopoulos.
After taking over the narrow, high-ceilinged property in 2017 for the Group’s meat HQ, they still needed a way to pay the rent. Christopoulos soon expanded the team’s initial idea of a small burger shop to one that was always open, reviving his childhood memories of the 24-hour Embassy