Red leather, dark wood, mirrors and textured ceiling hark back to a bygone era. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Cast your mind back in time … it is the year 1962. Robert Menzies is Prime Minister and his government has just given Indigenous Australians the right to vote. John F Kennedy has ordered a thousand Cuban cigars before imposing a trade embargo on the country. The Beatles are releasing their first single and Marilyn Monroe’s death is front page news.
And in Canberra, a steakhouse has just opened its doors for the first time.
Charcoal Restaurant is more than a restaurant: it’s a piece of history. The decor has remained largely unchanged in its 64-year history; patterned carpet extends part-way up the walls, red-leather seats flank solid wooden tables, rattan lamps hang from a textured reed ceiling which extends down the long, narrow dining room.
Large mirrors gild the walls and empty bottles of Penfolds Grange Hermitage line the shelves, with vintages dating back through the decades.
If those bottles could talk…
The oldest bottle we saw on the shelves was a 1961 Vintage Claret. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
The menu itself has changed little in the history of the restaurant – although a page of specials including a slow cooked beef curry is likely a modern addition. Tempted as we are by oysters Kilpatrick or mornay, or a rich fried camembert, on a warm summer evening we opt for a prawn cocktail to start.
It comes to the table suspiciously fast: plump poached prawns thickly coated with cocktail sauce, served on a bed of lettuce.
But the main event and the reason we have visited tonight, is steak. My colleague chooses a 400 g sirloin, rare, with pepper sauce and I opt for a retro-chic steak Diane.
We also share a bottle of a South Australian Shiraz Grenache blend which feels appropriately hearty. Sadly our budget didn’t extend to a bottle of Penfolds.
When the steak arrives, our server (an earnest young man) also brings us ramekins of sour cream, chives and parmesan on a retro, spinning stand to add to our baked potato, as desired.
While the baked potato itself is deliciously creamy on the inside, I don’t enjoy having to peel it out of the alfoil in which it was baked. But I guess if it has been done this way for 60 odd years then I should probably just accept it.
The menu here is old school and has changed very little in the history of the restaurant. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
My eye fillet is beautifully tender – cooked exactly medium rare – and the creamy Diane gravy with garlic, Worcestershire sauce and pepper is deliciously rich. The large cut of sirloin for my colleague is also perfectly rare in the centre, with great char on the outside. I had anticipated a gravy boat, but his pepper sauce is served in a fairly basic ramekin (cue the drips). Perhaps not the best steak I’ve ever eaten, but a good one nonetheless.
At dinner, each steak is accompanied by a baked potato and steamed vegetables and at lunchtime the jacket spud is swapped for chips.
As we eat we ponder the history of this place: who might have sat at this window table before us? Politicians? Celebrities? My own parents back in their youth? Diners at a nearby table pop outside for a post-steak cigarette and we imagine the days when the dining room would have been filled with the smoke of cigars, ashtrays on every table.
Suitably satisfied and ready to return to the 21st century, we popped upstairs to Bar Rochford for a nightcap and to argue about politics.
The golden bull has been a mainstay of Civic for over 60 years. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Our server tells us that light rail construction has caused a 50 per cent downturn in business. It would be a real shame if a restaurant which has outlived the terms of 15 Prime Ministers is brought low by the orange bollards, fencing and machinery of roadworks.
It’s a piece of honest-to-goodness history, right in the middle of our little city.
Charcoal Restaurant is in the Melbourne Building, 61 London Circuit. It is open for lunch Tuesday to Friday from noon to 2 pm and for dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30 to 9 pm.
