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New Zealand label Rodd & Gunn opens its global flagship with four levels of food, wine and fashion in Melbourne’s most talked about art deco building. But will its ambitious bet on “experiential retail” work?
Not since the heyday of bricks-and-mortar retail has a Melbourne shop blended fashion and hospitality quite as ambitiously as the menswear store opening today on Little Collins Street. From New Zealand label Rodd & Gunn, the four-storey site includes two distinct dining spaces, a members’ bar, a cocktail lab by a big Melbourne name and a retail shop.
The first two floors are being unveiled today in the southern wing of the CBD’s former David Jones menswear store – a heritage icon with a gothic facade, born as the GJ Coles building in 1929. Its northern wing is occupied by Mecca’s new beauty megastore.
Facing Little Collins Street is Rodd & Gunn’s new marble-splashed shopfront, beneath which is the Cellar & Caffetteria, a subterranean wine bar and bottle shop with Italian food plus cocktails created by Matt Bax, founder of the acclaimed but now-closed Bar Americano.
‘How do we make retail more engaging? How do we have a deeper relationship with our clientele?’
Josh Beagley, director, The Lodge GroupNext month will see the opening of a clubby mezzanine bar, exclusively for Rodd & Gunn members, and the dining centrepiece, a vast restaurant whose design leans into the site’s art deco legacy, incorporating its arched windows, soaring ceilings and original tiled columns.
It’s a big swing for a brand best known for elevated menswear. But the global flagship is an extension of the Rodd & Gunn Lodges it’s launched in NZ and Brisbane (with a hatted restaurant), where “experiential retail” means fashion, food and wine under one roof.
“The thinking was, ‘How do we make retail more engaging? How do we have a deeper relationship with our clientele?’,” says Josh Beagley, director of The Lodge Group.
While he’s reluctant to reveal the cost of the project, he says, “You can see there’s been a fair bit of investment and resources thrown into this one.”
“We’re confident in the concept of experiential retail ... and I think it only moves the brand forward.”
Attempts at high-concept retail are seldom seen on this scale in Australia, particularly at a time when bricks-and-mortar shopping is volatile. In the late ’90s, longstanding Collins Street department store Georges relaunched with three upmarket restaurants, but shuttered after a year. In the same era, Italian luxury brand Armani opened and closed a cafe in its Sydney boutique that former Sydney Morning Herald restaurant critic Terry Durack awarded a hat in 1995.
Overseas in the last decade, Gucci has opened restaurants in Florence and Tokyo, Prada launched cafes in multiple cities, and a Ralph Lauren bar dropped briefly into the Hamptons.
Design is a key part of the success of these examples. In stark contrast to the colourful circus of cosmetics at the neighbouring Mecca, Rodd & Gunn’s interiors – by Melbourne-based Studio Y – are understated, using a largely grey scale palette, with raw and natural materials.
After entering off Union Lane, a steep tunnel-like stairwell leads you into the basement. “I wanted there to be a sense of discovery,” says Beagley. “It’s almost like a wine cave.”
It opens up into the Cellar & Caffetteria, a cavernous room for casual wining and dining.
To the left is a wall of wine, set in front of the remains of a multicoloured Coles mural. More than 350 bottles run the gamut from Burgundy to the Barossa Valley, with a specific section for Rodd & Gunn-branded wines that spotlight New Zealand grapes. Visitors can grab a bottle to go, or to drink in the adjacent tartan-carpeted bar and dining area.
The booziest drawcard downstairs, though, is what’s coming out of Bax’s dedicated cocktail bar, where he’s ageing, infusing and distilling for a list of five Italian-ish drinks.
Winter mandarins steep in Aperol and a mix of other liqueurs for the seasonal spritz. “Lime-limoncello” is made with tequila and a touch of mezcal, then magicked into margaritas. And moka-pot coffee is a point of difference in the espresso martini.
“It’s not a place for crazy garnishes or heaps of customisation,” says Bax, who’s saving that for the members’ bar, where margs might come with a “floating salt-air garnish”.
As well as his cocktail chops, Bax brought an intimate local knowledge to the project. “We might be a restaurant group, but we don’t have a group of restaurants in one city,” says Beagley. “[Bax] gave us that quintessentially Melbourne perspective.”
Completing the equation is a snackable, shareable menu by group executive chef Matt Lambert, whose New York restaurant The Musket Room earned a Michelin star in 2014.
His take on vitello tonnato entwines roasted veal loin with corned wagyu tongue, adding parsley oil and chopped cornichons for brightness. Handmade pastas range from mafaldine, a ruffle-edged long pasta, with wild-boar ragu to the Italo-American paccheri alla vodka. To share, a whole roasted Bannockburn chicken comes with panzanella, the tomato and bread salad.
The venue’s name is a nod to the Coles cafeteria that operated in the building until 1987. There are no bains-marie here, but the history is honoured in oversized chequerboard floors and the “fancy version of a cafeteria tray” the cinnamon doughnuts are served on.
The Cellar & Caffetteria opens Friday, October 3.
Lunch Tue-Sun, dinner Mon-Sat
Lower Ground, 280 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, roddandgunn.com/au/the-lodge-group/melbourne
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