Sad news in Sydney
Former Claridge's general manager Ron Jones and his wife, Eve, spend five months of the year as guest speakers on cruise ships or on assignments in Europe and the USA. Before Christmas they embarked on a trip to the other side of the world. This is part two of their story.
Sydney. Our friend Lucille Terry died on 27 December at the gentle age of 91 in her home town of Jefferson, east Texas. "Gone to her reward," she would have said.
"Miz Terry", as we always thought of her, was a feisty Texas lady, a larger-than-life character whose "Well, good mawnin', y'all" resounded in the main street of the 19th-century town. She was a schoolteacher, classmate of Lady Bird Johnson, and a much-decorated local historian. James Michener paid tribute to her in his epic, Texas.
Her connection with the hotel industry was accidental. Jefferson's only hotel, Excelsior House, was threatened with demolition after years lying empty. Determined not to allow the exquisite antebellum property to die, Miz Terry and the gallant ladies of the Jesse Allen Wise Garden Club (aka JAWS) set about raising just enough money to renovate and save the hotel. There wasn't enough left over for such luxuries as staff or management. The ladies organised a rota and set about running the hotel themselves, with the help of a paid cook.
We first stayed there in 1980 - one of the hotel experiences of a lifetime: bedrooms with antique furniture and huge, canopied beds covered with hand-stitched linens and patchwork quilts; breakfast with fellow guests at a polished table laid with pretty porcelain and antique silverware, under a crystal chandelier; ham, sausage and eggs and hot biscuits and the inevitable grits, plus the most delicate orange blossom muffins with home-made jellies and preserves. Only the ebullience and warmth of the welcome from Miz Terry and her associates outshone the entire experience. We - and Texas - will miss her.
Grace in favour
Sydney's busy Grace hotel claims an average year-round occupancy of 85%-plus - mainly corporate and conference business from Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. The hotel, built in extravagant art deco style in 1930 as headquarters of the Grace Brothers department store, has had a chequered history and reopened after being restored and classified (listed) in 1997.
A chronological history gives an account of the building's transformations, from office block to civil service and military use to hotel. "Gone," it assures us, "are the dingy offices where poor clerks spent their lives in semi-obscurity… " I know, because I was one of those "poor clerks".
Our visit to the Grace Building was a journey back in time to view the office I occupied as a young Royal Navy clerk at the end of the Second World War. Even then, in "the happiness business", my job was to assist servicemen's release prior to their immigration to begin a new life in Australia. I spent a wonderful year in Sydney before returning to the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool in 1946.
The Grace Building had been requisitioned as headquarters of the supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur. I wonder if he, too, kept his promise to return.
Soup today
The blackboard in the Deli Café read "SOD pumpkin soup". Quite right, we thought. The waiter explained that it meant "soup of the day", adding: "But, you know, nobody has ever ordered it since I've been here… "
Good, better, best?
The best restaurant in Sydney? We haven't had a bad meal yet, or service that's less than good. Five-star hotels are advertising celebrity chefs with futuristic ideas, and if the exponents of Australasian/Pacific Rim cuisine occasionally tend to overembellish the finest raw ingredients, you can't blame them for trying.
It's interesting, though, that while smart restaurants look worryingly empty this month, places like Fish at the Rocks, which is quite as expensive as some of them, still have people forming an orderly queue outside. Fish has wood floors, bentwood chairs, marble-topped tables and absolutely no pretensions.
We've never tasted better fish anywhere in the world - barramundi and whiting so fresh they might have been alive and flipping just minutes before. Simply cooked, the one in beer batter with chunky chips, the other breaded and served atop a salad of spinach, rocket and roasted peppers with a balsamic reduction.
The restaurant was taken over from his parents by Mark Hyne and the long-time chef, Paul Tate. Tourists represent just 30% of their customers, and they serve about 40 lunches and 75 dinners daily in two rooms, with an average spend of Aus$45 (£16.38). There's a modest wine list, with most available by the glass, but like many Sydney restaurants, Fish operates a bring-your-own-wine policy with an Aus$2-a-head corkage charge.
Why is Fish always full when the smart places are not? "I think it's the owner influence," says Mark Hyne. "We keep our fingers on the pulse, create a really relaxed family atmosphere, give people what they want."
