Liaison

A Final Request

Posted By Bob Hart on 18 August, 2011 | Comments 0

Consider these contradictions: Liaison is a slick cafe in a cutting edge building tucked into the armpit of Melbourne’s establishment. It offers simple food and a style of coffee that has more to do with the last decade than this one.

But curiously, it all works: Liaison is a pleasure to visit, and provides a regular bolt-hole for a vast assortment of escapees from nearby businesses, apartments, and haunts of the rich and self-important.

You will find it by swinging, from Little Collins, past a cool, new place called Lupino and into the street that flanks a high wall concealing the gin-scented back garden of the snooty Melbourne Club: No tie? Sorry, no way.

And if you travel past Liason, you may notice, on your left, the doors to the equally snooty women’s club, the Lyceum: No pearls? No, really?

Much of the magic, as is so often the case, can be found in the personality of Liaison’s operators: Danny Colls, who has infinite charm and could converse fluently under wet cement, and his partner, the stylish and very striking Siany McLaine.

There is also much to like in the design elements at play here: the sleek, black floors and counters, the central coffee and food station and the keenly sought spots at a smart communal table down the back.

Colls is a cafe veteran – once the high-flyer behind Cafe Racer, Postal Hall, Coffee Darling and more. Almost inevitably, he crashed and burned. And now, he has risen from the ashes with a more measured tread, with McLaine by his side, and in command of brilliant premises in the ground floor of the fanciful Monaco House.

And the coffee? Ah yes. Well. The coffee…

Colls has remained loyal to the respected Melbourne coffee company that remained loyal to him in darker days: Genovese. He still uses the Super Brazilian blend he has used for decades. But in fairness, the coffee he delivers will not be to everyone’s taste, and was not to mine.

The essentially anonymous blend is darkly roasted and delivers, unquestionably, a classically Italian profile: harsh but quite rich – strangely seductive as an espresso, but curiously characterless and, for me at least, unappealing under milk.

And yes, I admit to being captive to the comfort and opulence of single origin beans, skilfully blended: I am no longer comfortable with dark, ashen after-tastes.

But at times like this, I am reminded of a reality check offered by an arch observation in the recent Italian edition of the American food magazine, Bon Appetit:

“You can get a rich, crema-topped espresso just about anywhere (in Italy). And it doesn’t come with a lecture from some tattooed, fedora-wearing barista.”

Liaison regulars – several of who were keen to share their (favourable) views on the house brew – will never accept my reservations about the coffee. And in fairness, Colls’ familiarity with his vintage Wega machine delivers everything the 40kg of beans he goes through each week have to offer.

Also, Danny Colls exhibits no visible tattoos and seldom wears a fedora.

And both he and Genovese, perhaps the most sympathetic of the traditional coffee companies, will, I suspect, eventually arrive at something even better in the bean arena. Unless they choose to stick stubbornly to their guns, and to their mutual belief in the merits of a traditional Italian blend, which is possible.

But then, is coffee the most important ingredient of any cafe?

It is to me, but may not be to many Liaison regulars. They like the coffee, and are delighted with McLaine’s simple food offerings – especially a rice salad of steamed arborio rice studded with tuna, capers, olives and more. There are also a few Dench’s breads and pastries, three filled focaccia (one vegetarian) and a morning staple of muesli, fruit and yoghurt, and all is well.

But most of all, the regulars are happy with their hosts – Colls and McLaine – who are devout practitioners of the gentle art of hospitality: theirs, then, would appear to be the blend that matters most.