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Visiting Melbourne

Aired January 31, 2013 - 03:30:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a lot like wine tasting. Pretty much just wine (inaudible).

MELISSA LOUGHNAN, GALLERY DIRECTOR: We went through cupping (ph) and you had to make a loud (inaudible) noise with the spoon that would draw the coffee down our throats and put - bring the flavor up to the back of our noses as well, which I found a little bit difficult, having not done that before. I was trying to be really loud, but also kind of feeling a bit vulgar.

I suppose that illustrates how passionate Seven Seeds are about their coffee too, and how passionate Melbourne is. I mean, it was - the room was full.

SIMON GRIFFITHS, SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR: Yes, we'd rolled out of bed early on a Saturday morning expecting no one to be here, and this place is packed.

LOUGHNAN: Yes, we were quite shocked. But then again, we probably should have known that it was going to be like that.

We've likened Melbourne to a small New York and Sydney to a small L.A. Sydney is more kind of beach culture and outdoors, and Melbourne is more, I suppose, culture as in the arts and more festivals. And indoor offerings. Maybe because our weather is not as reliable.

(MUSIC)

LOUGHNAN: This is our 'hood. And these are some of our favorite places to go. So Third Drawer Down is a museum of souvenirs.

(CROSSTALK)

GRIFFITHS: Whoa.

LOUGHNAN: I'm not getting it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no.

LOUGHNAN: A really old area. And because, like, only recently gentrified, a lot of the architecture is intact. There are more (inaudible) apartment lofts (ph) moving up and spaces moving out, and more high-end restaurants and high-end fashion stores opening. So it is definitely changing. But it still has kind of a free, grungy spirit.

(MUSIC)

SHANE DELIA, CHEF: I'll have my favorite, creature of habit. Spicy lamb.

(LAUGHTER)

DELIA: We're at Victoria Market, out in front of the Borakistan (ph). This place has been here forever. It's the busiest time of the year, they make the most amazing borak (ph). You can find borak in Turkey, you can find borak in Lebanon, in Armenia. But I think it really is Turkish. It's the biggest market in the Southern Hemisphere. 1878 or something it was built. It used to be a cemetery, a stockyard, it's been everything, but sort of like the home now to the best products you can find in Melbourne.

We're going to do a little (inaudible) and veal to share. We're at Mahas (ph), and Mahas is everything, everything to me. It's my first restaurant. It's given me the opportunity to create a new type of cuisine. We do modern - I hate labeling food, but I suppose modern Middle Eastern. Australia is a multi-cultural society, and Melbourne is very multi- cultural, so it's all represented really strongly in the food here.

Meze (ph) for four. These boys have got it all wrapped up and to be honest, they do a better job than I do most days, but what Melbourne is renowned for, as much as for its food culture, it's renowned for its deli ways. We got some of the best dining in the country, we have some of the best bars in the country. And if you don't know where to go, you wouldn't have a clue. You have to sort of be a local to find them. So I'll take you down a few alleys, show you a few of the in-spots to be, some of the places you won't find if you are just walking in off the street, and we'll have a couple of babies (ph).

(MUSIC)

DELIA: Melbourne's jam-packed with little (inaudible). You'd be walking down a dead street, and suddenly, boom, you're in the middle of a laneway (ph). And it's bustling like this all day, from the morning with breakfast, coffee, afternoon, lunch, evening, this place will be (inaudible) until 10:30, 11:00 at night. And it's sort of the essence of Melbourne, you know? You don't have to have a restaurant to have a great place here.

Yes, man, look, this is real Melbourne. Eli Off an Alley (ph), the bar Americana, only 12 people can fit in there, so you have to be pretty lucky to get a spot. Amazing coffee house. Coffee during the day, club house (ph) at night.

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DELIA: The Melbourne alley scene is sort of Melbourne is about. You can have glitz and glam, you know, (inaudible), you know, Louis Vuitton, and then just off the alley, you have one of these budget places that you wouldn't even know was there. Here it is.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ROBERT MURPHY, AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLAYER: When there is, especially in a final, you know, we sing our anthem at the start of the match, and then there's - so there's that total silence, and then at the end of the anthem, the crowd sort of roars into this sort of lift, and you feel it in your body. It goes through your feet up into your legs, and it is one of those incredible privileges, really, I'd say that it's an absolute privilege that, you know, we love our sport. There's no doubt about that, we do love our sport, but I think what we love more than that is to tell people, especially Sydney, this is the sporting capital. We really (inaudible).

Right about where those birds are is where I had my knee folded back the wrong way, and then I got wheeled off on a little popemobile, and a supporter, a young laddie (ph), must have been I don't know, 10 or 11, leaned over the sense to tell me that I stuffed up his super coach team, which is our fantasy football. So as I'm sort of lying there with my leg the wrong way, "you stuffed up my super coach team."

(MUSIC)

MURPHY: So I was on one of those trains 13 (ph) years ago, and came up and have been here ever since. Thirteen, fourteen years ago. It's just a good city. It's the most livable city, whatever that means, and I don't think we even know what that means, but we like it. We like the sporting capital, we like to tell people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you want me to say? Melbourne is so much nicer than Sydney.

MURPHY: That's right, see, that's right.

OK, we're better, we're better than Sydney.

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MURPHY: We're in Amber Gardens (ph), which is part of the north of Melbourne city. So we're not, we're like within like 3 k's (ph) of the city, not far at all. Yes, so it's packed around me with the sun out. Lots of people around, very - it's kind of a very bohemian kind of place, and I think, I don't know what the big tourist thing is - but today is a big, beautiful thing, but it's so much more about the undertow of things more than the big glamour. Sydney is very - not to pick on Sydney again, but it's got the upper (inaudible) and the bridge (ph), and it's all very big and bright and bold, whereas I think Melbourne is much more subtle than that, and you have got to sort of work a bit harder to find it.

(MUSIC)

LUCY FOLK, DESIGNER: I'm from Melbourne originally. Grew up behind the stands in my father's cafe. (inaudible) macaroni necklaces and swinging cherries for my ears, and I decided to put that into practice later in life.

(MUSIC)

FOLK: So I think Cookes is one of my oldest friends. She has a fantastic catering company called Cookes Food.

SOPHIE COOKES, CHEF: You know, you get your Johnny Cash vibe on in the winter, and then summer we're all in the gardens, and it's all a bit kind of more relaxed.

FOLK: Yeah. It's sort of like not Central Park, but you know, that kind of - this is where (inaudible).

(MUSIC)

FOLK: Yes, this is ACCA. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. An incredible space, supposed to reflect the red rust and like the desert, and it's the only space in Australia that commissions work rather than collects work, so they have a really fabulous roster of exhibitions.

COOKES: And at the moment, they're doing a whole sequence on - it's actually videos, isn't it?

FOLK: Yes, film.

COOKES: Videography and all different types of film.

(MUSIC)

FOLK: We're (inaudible).

COOKES: Very good, we love this city.

FOLK: Beautiful day. This is very unique for Melbourne.

COOKES: And the best thing about where we are now is we have South Bend (ph) on this side and we've got the city on this side. So in terms of what to do after you've had your after-work drink. You've got hundreds of thousands of options now. On a good night (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

COOKES: And in the winter, actually, they do - they really do the glue-ons (ph), so you get the hot wine and hot dogs. And-

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they keep this place open?

FOLK: Oh, yeah.

COOKES: All year round.

FOLK: Yes, we're Australians. We just deal with the weather.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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SOPHIA BROUS, SINGER: We are Licorice Pie, which is one of the pearls of the open (ph) record store fame. One of the (inaudible), and sort of the place that has kind of developed a real international reputation. A lot of people come here from all over Australia and all over Melbourne, and a lot of international DJ's and musicians come here when they are in town. Just the (inaudible) place to come oftic (ph). I'm going to use that word for a while, oftic (ph).

(MUSIC)

BROUS: When I first started (inaudible) 14 or so, but then I said I was 21. And I got really involved in the jazz scene here, and the kind of indy underground band scene, which is really huge in Melbourne. I think that because Australia is so far away from other parts of the world, we have to kind of - we have to find ways to keep ourselves busy and interested, and so the thing is that if you look along these walls, there are many, many famous international musicians, but there are a lot of Australian musicians who we kind of prize and love very much.

(MUSIC)

BROUS: Well, as tends to happen in Melbourne, we just (inaudible). A legendary Australian musician.

MICK HARVEY, MUSICIAN: Yes, I was just hanging around here with my guitar.

(LAUGHTER)

BROUS: Legendary Australian musician, played with Nick Cave and Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party. And now for some reason, me. Which is...

HARVEY: Because she...

(CROSSTALK)

HARVEY: It's very hard to say no to someone as persuasive as you.

(MUSIC)

BROUS: You can see people from Melbourne come here all the time, and I guess it's kind of a very, very special place for people. And it's not necessarily something that, you know, is put on the front of Melbourne as a slogan. It's like one of those hidden little gems in the city.

Must be a gallery opening or something.

(MUSIC)

FRANK VALVO, HAIRDRESSER: So what I'm doing now is I'm looking up Beatbox Kitchen. The only way to find out where it is, is you look it up. So tonight, it's in Ligon Street (ph) and Bligh Street (ph) from 6:00.

(MUSIC)

VALVO: Come along. We'll have a bit of a chat. We got a few power walkers here. Come on, faster, faster. OK, we got a few people out eating. Got a few people ordering. That's my friend Rash (ph) up there. So he's taking a few orders.

Can we order, let's order a Rash-burger (ph). And then you want to come by and have a chat?

RALPH RASHID, BEATBOX KITCHEN: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

VALVO: Cool.

RASHID: Medium, I'm serving up medium, medium rare for you, Frank.

VALVO: Thank you.

RASHID: We just, you know, popping up one night a week, then, you know, different neighborhoods started to call us on our Facebook page and ask us to come. Because our country is so young, we haven't had, you know, years of food culture, straight culture. So this is - it's just new for us, and we need to have as much as we need highfalutin restaurants, we need the easy, accessible places to go to.

(MUSIC)

VALVO: This was an abandoned building maybe 10 years ago, maybe longer. There was nothing here. Then a group of shareholders or a syndicate or whatever they want to call themselves, got together, had an idea, put it all together, and it's just been a success. It's fabulous. You'll see once we go inside, just what you can do in here. Let's go upstairs. You can either be super fit and walk the six flights, or we can get the lift. I think we're going to take the lift.

So here we are, at rooftop, which is (inaudible) as well, and depending on the time of year, you have cinema here, and as you've probably seen, there is a lot of action going on. Melbourne people are very resilient. As long as the venue is good, people will go there. You build it and we'll come. That's the way we think. It's all about having fun in this town.

(MUSIC)

VALVO: Melbourne people will travel and fit in anywhere in the world. We've got such a good culture in this city. It's a very worldly culture.

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VALVO: And just look, you'd be surprised what there is to find in Melbourne.

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END