What's Hip, What's History and What's Hidden Behind Secret Doors, Down
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CITY MELBOURNE WHAT’S HIP, WHAT’S HISTORY AND WHAT’S HIDDEN BEHIND SECRET DOORS, DOWN NARROW LANES AND HERITAGE ARCADES. A LITTLE LOCAL KNOWLEDGE IN MELBOURNE REVEALS SOME SURPRISING TREASURES… WORDS: Margaret Barca he waiters are weaving in and out of the theatre crowd, arty types are ordering at the oh-so-Euro T European café. The fashionably Roman-style Spring Street Grocer appears to be doing a fine trade in fresh flowers, French cheese and artisanal gelati, while we search for the elusive Siglo bar. We push open an unmarked door, climb several flights of stairs and then – it’s like Narnia! We’re on a roof terrace in the treetops, a bar with views across to stately Parliament House and the slender spires of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Amazing. Up creaky stairs, down moody downstairs, along dingy alleys and on rooftop terraces, Melbourne’s creative, cultural, coffee and cocktail world is abuzz. You just have to know where to look. Determined to dip a little further into Melbourne’s nooks and crannies, we’re planning to leave the A-list tourist highlights and – with the help of a little Main image, a Spanish tapas bar insider knowledge – to explore another on graffiti-filled Hosier Lane Visions of Victoria, Margaret Barca Images: 22 Australia & NZ | December 2015 www.getmedownunder.com www.getmedownunder.com Australia & NZ | December 2015 23 CITY MELBOURNE side of Melbourne. The sun is just peeping and supernatural titles). And there’s the through the clouds as we cross Federation prestigious Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Square (Fed Square to the locals) towards We bustle along, back up steps and the sunshine-yellow umbrella of our emerge blinking into the sun and guide from Hidden Secrets Tours. Degraves Street. This is more lane than Hidden Secrets Tours has been running street, a pedestrian mall, with the odd (or should I say walking) tours for more bicycle and Vespa and a phalanx of café than a decade and Luisa, our guide, is tables and market umbrellas in the middle brimming with facts, figures and amusing of the street. anecdotes. Ironically, she is not a As Luisa explains, the council Melbourne local but originally from encouraged inner city living and eased Sydney, and, like a true convert, is licensing laws to bring people back into impressively well informed. the CBD. In 1990, apart from hotel restaurants, there were 30 restaurants in HIDDEN LANES the CBD. Today there are thousands. It’s Luisa gives us a little history before we hard to believe, but when you walk head off. Melbourne was never a penal around you do start to believe it! colony, but was set up, illegally, by free settlers in the 1830s under John Batman. UNIQUE SHOPS In fact, it was almost called Batmania in But there are also shops, of course, such as his honour. Such a pity that didn’t the elegant Little Book Room (the oldest Victoria-crafted jewellery on Luisa, a guide for Hidden Secrets happen – what a terrific name. children’s bookshop in the world), the The quirky Little Cupcakes store Tours, leads the way display at Clementine’s We’re on the Lanes and Arcades tour, teensy Little Cupcakes (gluten-free Black Left, an intricate ceiling though there are other walks focusing on Velvet, highly recommended) and tiny and tagging flourish on walls, doors and mosaic at Block Arcade cafés, heritage, art, architecture and so on. Choca Mama (sweets, sweets and more even rubbish dumpsters. It’s an We leave the Kimberley sandstone and sweets). Instagrammer’s delight. angular forms of Federation Square, pass Opposite, Clementine’s is generously We detour through a 1920s Beaux-Arts St Paul’s Cathedral (‘not the largest church stocked with goods made or crafted in former bank building (now a retail in Melbourne but one of the finest’), and Victoria, from rainbow-coloured bangles centre), then cross broad, leafy Collins iconic corner pub Young & Jackson’s and and Murray River salt flakes to honey that Street to the famed Block Arcade. The head down some slightly seedy-looking is made right in the heart of Melbourne. Italianate arcade, ‘based on the Galleria stairs. “Some people think is the entrance It seems a sharp worldwide decline in bee del Milano’, was in the same family from to the public toilets,” remarks Luisa, as we populations has prompted a move to the 1880s almost until today and has been descend to Campbell Arcade and encourage urban hives. Australia is the lovingly cared for. Degraves Street Subway. A barista, in a narrow café tucked into what seems to be a wall cavity, is pouring “ [MELBOURNE] WAS ALMOST coffee-to-go for morning commuters. We have a quick look in the windows of some CALLED BATMANIA... SUCH A PITY Shops occupy the lower floors of the Spanish-style Majorca Building little shops, including The Cats Meow, with its limited-edition, retro-inspired THAT DIDN’T HAPPEn ’’ The City Circle Tram at fashion by local designers. Flinders Station More unusual is the Sticky Institute only continent without bee disease. The fabulous floor mosaics – the largest next door, a shop devoted to zines (small Around 70 hives are dotted among in Australia – are all hand laid and domed circulation, non-profit, often handmade Melbourne’s rooftops and we sample two skylights flood the space with light. In the and photocopied ‘magazines’). It’s a varieties of honey including one from a 1880s and 1890s, the well-to-do would volunteer, non-profit arts space, where beehive actually in Degraves Street. Who promenade along Collins Street, ‘doing you can put together your own zine, or would have thought? the Block’, including the arcade. purchase one of dozens of zines on all We cross Flinders Lane to Centre Place Today, you are more likely to see manner of things. It’s small scale and – lined by hole-in-the-wall eateries – and visitors queuing at the Hopetoun Tea fascinating. look up at the splendid eight-storey, Rooms, established in 1892. A reputation Melbourne has been declared a Spanish-inspired Majorca Building (1930) for its High Tea (reservations required UNESCO City of Literature and with blue tiled facade and flourishes of – it’s frightfully busy), Downton Abbey- literature in all its forms finds a home gold. Shops occupy the lower floors but style flock wallpaper, and a positively here. The State Library is magnificent. the upper levels are now stylish dizzying array of cakes entice clients from There are zines and niche bookshops (in apartments. around the world. inner-city Fitzroy, Books for Cooks only Centre Place is considered a ‘high– It’s tempting to stop the tour and start sells cookbooks, food and wine tomes; the tolerance zone’, where owners and renters browsing – The Block is also home to Street art on Hosier Lane Haunted Bookshop specialises in occult agree that street art is allowed, and graffiti Gewürzhaus, (a cook’s delight of 24 Australia & NZ | December 2015 www.getmedownunder.com www.getmedownunder.com Australia & NZ | December 2015 25 BEST-KEPT CITY MELBOURNE SECRETS C urtin House 1 . At 52 Swanston Street, this building has been described as a vertical laneway. A narrow, six-storey, Art Nouveau building chock-a-block with hidden treasures, including Metropolis Bookshop; the always- Metropolis Bookshop busy, funky Asian- inflection restaurant Cookie, Mese Verde Mexican, and (my favourite!) the Rooftop Bar & Cinema with its deckchairs, city skyline and art-house movies. Macaroons for sale inside Graffiti artists cover any surface Cathedral Arcade in the Nicholas the ornate Royal Arcade they can off Central Place Building on Swanston Street Asian-style restaurant, Cookie Madame Brussels exotic herbs, spices, Himalayan salt and they love to slip in a café, a bar or a H osier Lane rooftop bar more), Haigh’s Chocolates (divine), restaurant! The General Post Office backs 2 . No longer a secret perhaps, but easy to miss. Between Flinders Street and Flinders Lane, Hosier Australian by Design gift shop and more. on to Little Bourke Street. The ‘little’ Lane is renowned for its graffiti, tagging and But we’re pressing on behind Luisa, streets and lanes were just wide enough figurative street art. Stop in at Spanish tapas bar making our way to the Royal Arcade. for a bullock-team to turn to make MoVida Next Door for a vino, or have a coffee at deliveries and formed an intrinsic part of Good2Go Coffee (profits support the homeless). HERITAGE DELIGHTS Melbourne’s formal grid plan. The grid Less grand than the Block, but older still makes finding your way around (1869), the Royal Arcade stands on land relatively easy. purchased in 1837 for just £20 and links We wind back along Union Laneway, Little Collins Street and Bourke Street. then detour off to another lane, Presgrave Above, a mouth-watering window We briefly ponder Spellbox, with its Place. At the end, we spy the gold-lettered display at Hopetoun Tea Room magic crystals, mysterious potions and doors to diminutive Bar Americano. This psychic readings, and then spend a little über-stylish aperitivo bar with a nod to ceramic tiled floors, polished wood Crossley Street while gawping at Suga, where neon- the Prohibition era, caters for only about joinery and leadlight skylights, which is coloured sugar rock candy is hand rolled 10 people, standing-room only, and is part of the 1925 Nicholas Building. The C rossley Street by ‘lollyologists’. You can even have it renowned for its fine coffee and cocktails. building is home to some idiosyncratic 3 . It’s called a street, but it is a lane, short and personalised with your own name rolled Close by, stands the Manchester Unity shops as well as studios for artists, artisans sweet.