Top restaurateur Chris Lucas and his wife Sarah wanted a Parisienne-style feel in their new four-level Melbourne dining house Maison Batard.
The pair gave Mills Gorman Architects and interior designers Mitchell & Eades a functional brief – make three different restaurants and a nightclub in the basement of a building in Bourke Street using design cues from the Lucas’ trips to Paris.
A steel-clad top level encloses the more informal terrace.Credit: Mitchell & Eades
“These cues came from a variety of places, from high-end hotels to boutiques, including boutiques such as Balmain and Chanel,” says architect and interior designer, Hayley Mitchell, co-director of Mitchell & Eades, who spent her earlier career based in London and regularly travelled to Paris.
“It wasn’t about just reproducing a Parisienne experience, but importantly, creating a certain ambience that would connect to patrons here,” adds Mitchell, who worked closely with interior designer Stef Marsh, an associate of the practice.
On some of Maison Batard’s walls are reproductions of French paintings with faces daubed in red paint and trickles running down clothes or naked bodies. Credit:
Maison Batard is thoughtfully concealed behind a fully restored heritage-listed Romanesque Revival facade at 23 Bourke Street that was designed by architect William Salway in 1901 and once housed the former Society restaurant, which opened there in 1932.
“It’s been an eight-year project, including working with the heritage facade, a heritage-listed chimney and also creating an entirely new basement,” says architect Craig Gorman, who was mindful from the outset that any addition didn’t “overwhelm the host building” (a phrase used by council and those working in the heritage field).
A steel-clad top level enclosing the venue’s more informal terrace is only visible from nearby Windsor Place.
Beyond the reeded glass windows and steel front door, patrons are immersed immediately in the world of Maison Batard – with travertine floors and aged mirrors on the walls, created by Outlines. The mirrors are aged and rusticated with miniature brass flowers at each corner. There’s a high level of detail at every turn including over-scaled lanterns, deep velvet banquette-style seating and armchairs, and a coffered ceiling.
