Business Don't miss out on the headlines from Business. Followed categories will be added to My News. Influential restaurateur Chris Lucas has put it all on the line with Maison Batard — a lavish Bourke St restaurant filled with antiquities and French paintings which opens on Tuesday in the southern capital.
It has taken him eight years and the restoration of three crumbling heritage buildings to create the four level restaurant with basement supper club and soaring rooftop terrace as well as sublime dining spaces and even more sublime French food – but will he recoup the millions of dollars he has outlaid on the lavish interiors? “The costs have blown out, there’s been a huge inflationary spike in building costs, but this is a legacy project for me. “I could sell a lot of chateaubriand but I don’t think I will get the money back I’ve spent creating Maison Batard,” Lucas confessed to The Australian with a shrug. The Melbourne restaurant king won’t disclose how much it cost to purchase the buildings and undertake the restoration for the restaurant which has around 180 covers adding that the buildings were originally built for GW Hall in 1901 and were designed by the renowned Melbourne architect William Salway.
From 1932 the building housed the iconic The Italian Society restaurant which was opened by Giuseppe Codognotto. Its waiters were instrumental in introducing European food culture to Melbourne and became known as “The Spaghetti Society”. The fourth .