Club dinners get a five star twist as a new generation of chefs and restaurateurs put the razzle back into RSLs

Anthony Sobb at Montagne Restaurant in Fairfield RSL Club

But you won’t find Montagne in Circular Quay, Bridge St, Rose Bay or Bondi.

Rather, this exclusive 65-seat French brasserie, which opened in December, is at Fairfield RSL, the latest in a group of impressive restaurants at the club that includes a $1.2 million sister restaurant, the up-market Italian ristorante La Tratt.

Welcome to the new face of club dining in Sydney.

Maitre d' Maji Yau at La Tratt restaurant at Fairfield RSL

 

Sous Chef Jason Joannou from Montagne Restaurant

Disappearing are the dusty club bistros of yesteryear with lurid 1980s carpet, imported fish and chips, cheap steaks and frozen chicken schnitzels.

Rather, today’s clubs are in the grips of a restaurant renovation frenzy, with millions being spent on luxurious fit-outs and sophisticated food.

“When you come to the Fairfield RSL we want to give the feeling of walking into a five-star hotel,” says Fairfield RSL chief executive officer, Anthony Sobb.

“We want to make the experience special. Here, everyone can be treated like a somebody.”

Duck A L'Orange from Montagne Restaurant at Fairfield RSL Club

When Sobb devised the idea of Montagne, a bistro modelled on New York’s Balthazar brasserie, he really went to work, tearing out an existing restaurant, devising a menu of bistro classics borrowed from the cookbooks of chefs like Paul Bocuse, and introducing a strictly French wine list. The Chartreuse bottles added sparkle.

“We want the club to be a gastronomic destination of the west,” Sobb says.

Fairfield RSL is one of a growing band of clubs that realise today’s patrons are culinary literate and interested in more than pushing coins into pokies.

ClubsNSW figures show food revenue across the state last year reached $866.2 million, up from $640 million in 2004. In the same period, club membership rose from 4.8 million to 5.7 million.

Chocolate tart from Montagne restaurant at Fairfield RSL Club

“In the last five years there has been a dramatic shift in the quality of food provided by clubs because they are responding to the demands of their members,” says ClubsNSW chief executive officer Anthony Ball.

“People don’t want the old chicken schnitzel and cheap steak any more. Well, you can still get those things, but you can also get degustation.”

Bankstown Sports Club CEO Mark Condi agrees a shift is happening.

“Sure we have gaming — you can’t get away from that,” Condi says. “But a lot of clubs — about a third — in NSW are struggling. And the clubs that have succeeded have realised it’s not just about gaming anymore.”

The scale of the investment at Bankstown Sports is huge. One of Sydney’s biggest clubs with 65,000 members, it is about to start a $2 million renovation to create an Asian dining precinct to rival its existing Italian precinct, La Piazza. The new area will include a noodle house and up-market Chinese restaurant.

A far cry from the old school RSL dining, Pho @ Fairfield RSL

Piazza Stuzzichini restaurant at Bankstown Sports Club

“Clubs are not-for-profit,” says Condi. “So all the money raised has to go back into the core purpose of that club or reinvested into that business.”

He says investment in food and beverage is usually repaid in greater patronage and higher spends.

“When we opened La Piazza, we thought our other food and beverage offerings would take a while to recover,” he says. “But in fact we had increased demand.”

Restaurateur Con Dedes, who opened Watergrill at Cronulla RSL in November, says the $6 million renovation has been a huge hit.

“It’s gone better than we could have expected,” says Dedes. “And there’s no doubt there’s a movement of change with clubs. People know more about food than they used to.”

WaterGrill’s Con Dedes says the restaurant at Cronulla RSL has been a huge hit

Since Watergrill opened, the RSL’s membership has jumped from 15,000 to 20,000, and turnover has jumped.

It’s a similar situation at the Hellenic Club, in Sydney’s CBD, which opened the gorgeous Alpha last year. With acclaimed chef Peter Conistis at the helm and a $4 million upgrade, the restaurant has become a city hotspot.

“Some people, when they walk into a club, expect the food will be disappointing and quite often it’s not to the quality or level it should be,” says Hellenic Club CEO Arthur Balayannis. “But today this is a very competitive space and it’s very transparent and you have to be good. And people don’t care if you’re in a club or not.”

Source:  The Australian - 26 February 2014