Things got pretty uncomfortable over lunch at Fifteen last Friday. We’d already been through the good bits and I suppose probing questions I asked investor/property developer Adam Garrisson didn’t mix with food. Actually, they didn’t mix with his views. And that is probably why he then called me 9.30pm Saturday night.
He and Toby Puttock were tight-lipped but shifty when I asked about Stephen Downes being banned, passing the buck to the restaurant manager. I know for a fact the staff at the Herald Sun were pretty pissed-off because they had given a lot of support to the restaurant before the paper’s critic was banned. To reiterate, Stephen Downes is the critic the paper uses because it beleives he is the best person to do the job.
Lauren Oliver (no relation to Jamie) seemed pretty switched on and I hope she’ll be able to make the charity side of the venture work. I may post some extra snippets if I get time.
As far as the food goes, I ate a main and a dessert. The “Wicked Sicilian fisherman’s stew: Local fish of the day, clams, mussels, saffron potatoes, grilled sourdough and a dollop of lemon aioli at $36 was tasty enough but middle of the road compared to others I’ve eaten recently in Melbourne. Garrisson raved over the “Vialano nano tiramisu (little twist on the traditional) at $14″. It is made with a special risotto rice but wasn’t particularly flavoursome in my opinion.
The fit out is good with a very expensive looking curvy marble bar and a strange panelled private dining room.
Check out The Bulletin this week for the full story. (Out Wednesday 25 October 2006)
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Ed,
I don’t know the complete story about the Fifteen V Hun saga, but it does concern me that the Hun thinks that because it is giving good media coverage of a venue, its staff members/reviewers should be treated with more respect than if they hadn’t. Also, as I saw recently on the Internet, that the Victorian Racing Club (or is that committee? I don’t know) will be treated differently because of a sponsorship deal with The Age. The Hun claimed that the VRC has had good media coverage with them in the past and purely because of a business deal, won’t be treated well in the future. Was it not newsworthy in the past, but was printed purely for its business prospects (I assume coprorate entertaining marquees/advertising/etc)
I personally don’t agree with most of Stephen Downes reviews, as I find them a bit ‘wanky’ in the same way that the Hun and The Age review other facets of our culture (music/theatre/arts/etc). They like to pretend that these things have to be elitist for people to truly enjoy them.
However I don’t think it is incredibly smart of fifteen to focus on just one reviewer. They should be open to critique, and be prepared to back themselves up in a public way. If they get a bad review, it isn’t too hard for an outfit like the Oliver camp to get more media attention on the tele, or the other papers. Not even by review but as features/exclusives etc.
If the Hun deemed fifteen to be newsworthy in the first place for all the media coverage it gave, then it should be happy it is doing news. If it wasn’t newsworthy, then why did they cover it in the first place? To ensure that its staff were treated with preferential/special treatment….?
Into the lion’s den and emerging unscathed, well that’s pretty boring, like the food from the sound of it.
Just a snippet, Ed – Elizabeth Meryment referred to Tomato blog (including URL) in the Weekend Oz Travel and Leisure section (Food Detective, weekend just past) to read the drill about Downes’ ejection from 15. More traffic I reckon.
Lucas, I don’t think the Hun wants special treatment. But having devoted so much editorial space to Fifteen probably felt that it was a bit churlish to ban Stephen. There is no reason to ban someone just because you disagree with them. I disagree with Stephen on many things. I also think it is a freedom of speech story in some ways. And it is symptomatic of business in general trying to censor the media all the time. There is really no parrallel to the racing story. I just happen to know somebody in production who said the features desk was annoyed. It’s as simple as that and nothing sinister. If you check out my story it details why they may fail at Fifteen.
Neil, meeting them was anything but boring. but you are right, what I ate was.
Reb, I did see it as The Oz is my W/end paper and I’m doing a few stories for Elizabeth. On the traffic, it all depends which sitemeter you believe but I find the jumps from print media arn’t that large – a few tens of people – compared to a link from a good site or blog. I traffic went down after Gourmet Traveller. Try and work that one out.
Ah – well that’s pretty interesting. Division of consumer media preferences. And I can understand the GT thing. I read your site despite any involvement with the mag
) You produce quality and interesting reading. Nuf said.
About the Hun and Victorian Racing Club issue. It was the Melbourne Racing Club who run Caulfeild who have had a deal with the age…so that may have been upset at the Hun…..
Ok, so totally offtopic but – I found your website while looking for Polish beer in Melbourne. Just got back from 3 months in Poland and have grown accustomed to the beer. Any ideas? HELP!
Can I take the Polish beer one Ed? You can find it plus a million other countries at Acland Cellars, 187 Acland Street, St Kilda, you can also try the importer BJP International at 21 Elma Road, Cheltenham who sell beer and Polish food direct to the public.
Mishku, Neil is right, pretty much all that beer was from Acland Cellars.
Reb, Sorry, I’ve just rescued you from junk. I just try and offer something different, call it media diversity if you will. I don’t know if it’s a field any of your communications students would be interested in but I reckon there’s an interesting research project into what drives traffic to blogs. For a start the analytics tools – I have AW Stats, Webalizer and recently Google Analytics – are in the dark ages. Also there is the relationship between blogs driving traffic, search engines, old media. Maybe I’ll try and pitch a story somewhere coming to think of it.
Heh, I’m currently researching/writing an essay on blogging as social networking software (being the media/communications student that I am), have mostly focused on the writers, but that’s an interesting point re: blog readers.
Hi Ellie,
And feeds. I often read a lot of blogs via feeds or if people receive the blog via a Feedburner/Feedblitz email they often don’t visit. there’s a huge topic here to be addressed. this is becomng quite a diverse conversation from Fifteen to traffic to Polish beer. Excellent.