A diamond geezer
In the third part of their exploration of the Antipodes, former Claridge's general manager Ron Jones and his wife Eve investigate contrasting examples of the Australian hospitality industry, from Parramatta's colourful inns to Sydney's swish 41 restaurant.
Manly, New South Wales, 23 January. A leisurely river-cat cruise up the Parramatta River took us to view a couple of Australia's earliest licensed premises. Inns were licensed as early as 1798 in New South Wales's second city, where not only the first farm but the first vineyard was established.
One of the notorious early licensees was John Hodges, a freed but not altogether reformed convict whose licence was granted in 1818 by Governor Macquarie. His inn was the Brislington, a fine four-square brick building, and Hodges is said to have won the land on which he built it in a card game with a fellow convict. The eight-diamond pattern of bricks on the north side of the house is testament to his lucky card.
Today, the Brislington is a medical and nursing museum. The Woolpack, on the other hand, straddles a busy corner of Parramatta, still every inch the galleried, Wild West-style pub it was in 1821 when it was the Freemasons' Arms. Governor Macquarie visited once but declared it too crowded and demanded "better provision for gentlemen". He ordered licensee Andrew Nash to extend the hotel, and the extra portion catered for officers and gentry, leaving the main bar for "soldiers, farmers and general trade".
Parramatta had 17 inns by 1815, though only seven remained in 1820 - the hospitality business was fickle even then. Pubs, however, proliferated. By 1855, there was one for every five dwelling houses in Church Street alone, enough to cause a newspaper reporter to write: "…a stranger must be struck with the immense number of those sources of riot - public houses - with which the town is studded all over."
Yen for a barbie Sydney abounds with quirky restaurants, including our next-door neighbour, Suminoya, where if you don't eat up, you pay up! Its speciality is scichirin, a kind of Japanese barbecue it claims to be the healthy traditional way of cooking meats and seafood.
Dinner comes as a series of courses - sashimi or marinated squid, then salad, soup, rice and your yakiniku (barbecue). Strips of raw beef, pork rib, chicken, "beef intestine" and vegetables are brought to the table along with a charcoal grill for DIY cooking. Despite the special air conditioning, our eyes were soon streaming from the blue smoke rising from our own and every other table.
The menu advises: "Due to health regulations requiring use of disposable mesh for BBQ, an extra charge of $2 per mesh applies." Patrons are asked to desist from ordering "unnecessary food" and gently informed: "We may ask you to pay for substantial leftovers." We didn't have to - it was too good to waste.
Gentlemanly encounter Funny how things come full circle in the hospitality business. I remember disgraced Australian tycoon Alan Bond as a regular guest at the Athenaeum hotel in Piccadilly while I was manager there in the 1970s. I used to have to ask him to get his feet off the (brand new) coffee tables in the Windsor Lounge.
Now, here I stand, making use of the facilities in the gents' cloakroom of Sydney's smartest restaurant, 41, with walls of glass giving stupendous views over the city, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the ocean from 41 floors up. And the world's most spectacular gents' is the erstwhile marbled bathroom of Bondy's penthouse, inhabited by him before his fall from grace.
Training by degrees at Inter-Continental
When the shortage of trained staff became acute in 1989, Sydney's Hotel Inter-Continental came up with a unique solution: it opened its own hotel school. It began by offering one-year City & Guilds courses, with jobs guaranteed on completion. And, like Topsy, the school has hardly stopped growing.
For the past five years, though still administered by the hotel next door, the school has been affiliated to Southern Cross University, which sets programmes and standards. The school now offers a two-year diploma course and a three-year bachelor's degree course in hospitality and tourism studies. Year one is still given over to practical C&G courses - 20 weeks of study, 20 weeks working in the hotel - and students can choose culinary craft skills, front office or F&B service.
Students pay $12,900 a year (about £4,500) for tuition and degrees are conferred in a graduation ceremony at which the university chancellor officiates. Student intake is 350 over the three years, and many graduates now occupy senior positions in the hospitality and tourism industry throughout Australia and the Far East.
Mastering gastronomy
Adelaide University is claiming a world first. In conjunction with the Cordon Bleu School there, it is offering a full-time Master's degree course in gastronomy, starting this summer. The syllabus includes such topics as the cultural aspects of food and cooking, history of dining, recipes and cuisine "from Escoffier to Jamie Oliver".
And it aims, it says, to put gastronomy right up there with art and architecture, where it belongs.
