Canberra's Charcoal restaurant in Civic up for sale

One of the stalwarts of Canberra's dining scene is on the market. Charcoal restaurant's menu and style have remained untouched for the past 50-odd years - an old fashioned steakhouse that turns out deep fried camembert and 1 kilogram  rib on the bone for a loyal if ageing customer base of silks, politicians and band ones and twos. 

 Owner David Ramage was an accountant in the 1990s when he bought the Civic restaurant in an international deal that spanned four continents.  Ramage was in London, as a partner in the accounting firm Deloittes which counted Charcoal as one of its clients. "The owners were trying to sell to someone from South Africa and he didn't have any money, his father had the money but his father was in New York and couldn't be contacted. The owners then contacted my wife to see if I might be interested and she got in touch with me in London," he says. And so he bought the restaurant on London Circuit.

He and his wife Karen had wanted to get involved in the hospitality business and Charcoal was a bit of a learning curve. Ramage has owned the restaurant for the past 24 years and has memories of everything from a touring British Lions' rugby choir ("around about 9.30pm they pulled out their songbooks and got to singing. I could have stayed till breakfast listening") to receiving a hospitality lifetime achievement award from one of his customers - Joe Hockey. He even received a discreet plaque from the Department of Defence after a major (and top secret) deal was sealed in the restaurant.

The restaurant has been a discreet gathering place for Canberra's movers and shakers.

 Very little has changed about the steakhouse - the padded seats, hanging lamps and long-serving staff. "It's been a successful formula all its years; the restaurant's been here since 1962. Nothing much has changed at all," he says.  The fittings have been upgraded over the years, and a new awning over the door, and some items have come on and off the menu. But the filet mignon and the jumbo fillet are still popular, as are the oysters. "There's things on the menu like deep-fried camembert and carpetbag steaks that you'd never see anywhere else," he says.

Ramage is now retiring - his wife died three years ago and he'd like to travel a bit. He wants the buyer to be "someone interested in the place that's going to continue the standards we set here. They're not haute cuisine but they're good standards. It would be foolish to change it, I would think," he says.

Real estate agent Frank Walmsley says the restaurant is a discreet gathering place for Canberra's movers and shakers. "If there was ever going to be a House of Cards in Canberra it would be based around deals done in the background at Charcoal. For a classic steak and a glass of red wine there's no better spot in Canberra," he says.

Walmsley says the business is for sale via expressions of interest and no price has been set.

Source: Good Food   Natashe Rudra    June 2nd 2015