First look inside the Grossi family’s new pub venture, Puttanesca at Clifton Hotel in Kew
Melbourne’s first family of fine dining − and a former Carlton football star − take on a pub with a colourful past, and bring along some of their favourite Italian dishes.
Chef Guy Grossi will open the doors to his newest venue at The Clifton Hotel in Kew Junction on Saturday, teaming up with Sydney entrepreneur Jon Adgemis in his first Melbourne venture.
The ground floor of the Clifton has been renovated in navy blue and terrazzo, terracotta and tiles, and it will house Grossi’s 120-seat restaurant, called Puttanesca.
The heritage of the pub, built in 1868, has inspired Puttanesca, named after the spaghetti dish associated with sex workers (puttana) in mid-century Naples. The dish, which includes olives, anchovies, capers and chilli flakes, will be on the menu, along with other Italian family favourites.
“Upstairs in this pub is where the working girls lived,” says the chef-restaurateur, famous for his Age Good Food Guide two-hatted Grossi Florentino restaurant in the city.
The main dining room of the osteria is dominated by an enormous film poster for La Mortadella, the 1971 comedy starring Sophia Loren.
“We took inspiration from the stories of the pub, just like we took inspiration from Sophia,” says the chef and restaurateur. “She’s elegant and a bit cheeky.”
Puttanesca’s menu has local families in its sights. “Good pizza, really nice pasta, beautiful antipasti and dolci (desserts),” says Grossi. “It’s not meant to be fancy. It’s the sort of place where you get home from work, the kids are hungry and you can’t be bothered doing the dishes, you go down the road and you’re in a beautiful environment.”
Classic Grossi dishes are being plucked from the family’s other restaurants. “Mamma’s Lasagne will be coming here from Cellar Bar: it’s our nonna’s recipe for bolognese sauce with bechamel and pasta sheets – gooey and yummy,” says Grossi. “And I have to do Papa’s Lamb, the slow-cooked lamb my father taught me to cook when I was a little boy.”
And in exciting news for fans of the family’s yet-to-reopen laneway bar Arlechin, behind Florentino, the beloved bolognese jaffle will return as a bar snack. “We’re borrowing that one because we thought the front bar would be perfect for it,” says Grossi.
The whole menu is available across the bar, astroturfed deck and restaurant, but Grossi sees this steamy sandwich as particularly bar-friendly, along with a special focus on meatballs.
“You can have your polpette in a bowl, or you can have them with polenta, you can have them with spaghetti or you can have them in a burger bun. We’re a pub without a burger – but we do have polpette in a bun.”
They’re also a pub without a parma, in the strictest sense. “We’re doing a big, fat, juicy chicken cotoletta, and if you want you can add tomato and mozzarella,” he says. “That’s our answer to the parmigiana.”
We’re a pub without a burger – but we do have polpette in a bun.
There will be TV screens in the front bar and deck area, a beef pie on the menu, and a few special touches from 300-game Carlton Football Club champion Marc Murphy, a project manager for Public Hospitality Group, which Adgemis heads.
“We’ll have some ‘Jezza’ (Carlton legend Alex Jesaulenko) pictures on the wall and I think this is where the party is going to be in September,” says Murphy, nodding to his old club’s handy run towards the AFL finals.
What has the footballer learnt about hospitality? “There’s this stand-out dish that I called a schnitzel, but now I know it’s a cotoletta,” says the newbie, who has acquired his Responsible Service of Alcohol certification and is about to embark on barista training. “This is my first project but it’s going smoothly,” he says.
Various branches of the Grossi family live in Kew. “We’ve been in the area for 20-odd years,” says Grossi. His sister Liz Grossi-Rodriguez, wife of group executive chef Chris Rodriguez, lives so close to the Clifton she promises she’ll be there nightly.
“But until now, we’d never even been here for a beer,” says Guy Grossi. “It’s been closed for some years and we assumed someone would put up an apartment building complex here.”
Instead, Jon Adgemis reached out. “We were unsure, but we had a look and thought it had really good bones and it would be great for the area,” he says. “For me, a new project has to feel right and be fun. At this stage of my career, I want to do things that I really enjoy doing and that excite me, not for the sake of making a few bucks. When I’m here and I look around, I feel good about it.”
So what about the puttanesca at Puttanesca? For a start, there won’t just be a pasta dish. There will also be a puttanesca pizza, a kingfish crudo alla puttanesca and even a cocktail. But the pasta sauce will be the bedrock.
“You start with olive oil, you smash up some garlic, pop that in the pan and let it start warming up,” says Grossi, waving his hands as if to waft the smell of garlic through the room.
“Then you get really good tomatoes ‒ I like them crushed so they’re still a little bit chunky. We put those into the pan. You add beautiful black olives, capers, anchovies, chilli, a little bit of oregano, and then that all cooks together, then salt and pepper, spaghetti and a bit of the pasta water.”
What is it about this combination that not only works as a dish but is also good enough to lend its name to a restaurant? “They’re good ingredients, salty and sweet, that really sing together,” he says.
Clifton Hotel and Puttanesca will open daily noon-late from August 19.
99 High Street, Kew, 03 9124 7299, cliftonhotel.com.au
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Sign up
Dani Valent is a food writer and restaurant reviewer.