Emma Westwood loves to get down to the nitty gritty on the Melbourne streets and, this edition, she takes FRV readers to another cool part of town. Curtin House has endured a checkered past but now has blown away the cobwebs – and shines.

Melbourne’s Swanston Street is the city’s unofficial main drag. Dotted with cheap Asian restaurants, fast food chains, discount stores and sordid adult cinemas, it very rarely wears the badge of ‘swelligance’. Except in the case of Curtin House.

Named after former Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, Curtin House boasts a colourful past as the headquarters of the Communist Party and, consequentially, the hotbed for political skirmishes and controversy. When the Communist Party dissolved, Curtin House found new friends as an artists’ enclave and then, when they left in the ‘90s, fell into dereliction – a sad reminder of something once vibrant and vital, and yet another wasted historical space in Melbourne’s CBD.

In steps Tim Peach into the picture, who saw the potential of this building with its solid stone façade and staircase, and cavernous warehouse interiors, as something extra special. Six-ish years ago, Peach approaches Melbourne entertainment entrepreneur Camillo Ippoliti, whose Midas touch had turned nightclub Revolver into a booming success. A match made in heaven, Peach and Ippoliti (with the help of architect Phillip Schemnitz) transformed the first floor of Curtin House into a bar and restaurant called ‘Cookie’ and, as they say in the bar circles, the rest is history.

Five and a half years on and Cookie stays as popular and as fresh as its debut on the scene. With what we could safely pitch as one of the most well-stocked bars in the world (over 200 beers are available), it’s no surprise that Cookie took out Australian Bartender Magazine’s Best Drinks Selection in 2005 and then the big gong of Bar of the Year in 2006. A new cocktail selection in recent months, where drinks like the nouveau-sounding caramel margarita sit alongside classic martinis, sees them hoping to collect a cocktail prize in 2007. If the punters have any say, then they’re in with a winning chance.

“I remember when we first started and it was really scary to stick a venue up these stairs on Swanston Street,” explains manager Daniel Ippoliti, son of Camillo. “Camillo used to say to me everyday ‘We should be so thankful every time somebody walks up those stairs’. It’s intimidating, it’s intimidating for customers as well.”

But Melbourne, with an ‘it’s only worth going to if it’s hard to find’ attitude, has embraced Cookie like its own lounge room. Whether it’s a hot and spicey Thai-styled meal, listening to some grooves from the DJ or hard-drinking until 3am, Cookie is compact yet flexible enough to serve the myriad of expectations. Children’s illustrations are projected on the walls and old books line surfaces but this is the full extent of the gimmickry. “Cookie is about an over-indulgence in product,” admits Daniel, a fact immediately evident by all the bottles on display.

With the hoards of people Cookie introduced to Curtin House have come new tenants. Today, two clothing outlets, a music/book store, publishing company and even a kung fu academy call Curtin House their home. In fact, the once forgotten building has reached its full capacity with the opening of two new ventures by Camillo Ippoliti in the last 12 months – Rooftop Bar and the curiously titled the Toff in Town.

Rooftop Bar made its first appearance as a cinema with the advent of Melbourne’s warmer weather last December. Its popularity ensures a repeat performance once summer hits again but, in the meantime, it has continued operation as an open-air and smoker-friendly (all licensed indoor venues in Melbourne are now smoke-free) bar that offers Melbourne’s glittering skyscrapers as its wallpaper.

Faced with a bitterly cold winter, Rooftop comes equipped with outdoor heaters, scarves, blankets, gloves and minestrone bean soup to ensure patrons can battle even the chilliest of evenings. Swamped with fog recently, Rooftop even enjoyed a ‘to capacity’ evening, with Melbourne’s more adventurous drinkers keen to huddle like penguins shrouded in the moody cloud. All were sufficiently warmed by mulled wine, chilli vodka and huggable cups of hot chocolate.

Downstairs on the floor above Cookie, Melbourne’s most talked about new venue in the last 12 months, the Toff in Town, opened in April to coincide with the Comedy Festival. With its name taken from a 1948 novel by John Creasey, ‘Toff’ as it’s been affectionately coined, takes what has proven to be gold at Cookie and kicks it up a notch or two. The atmosphere here is of a 1930s overlander train – railway ‘carriages’ stretch down the centre of one bar, offering privacy and table-direct service available at the push of a button – with a distinctly European edge. All the wines on the menu are French and price up to AU$3000.

“When it was being designed and built, we all spent a lot of time looking at old books on railway carriages and planes – ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s stuff. You know those beautiful old photos where you have a carriage with a little bar in the corner and the seats and all that?” says Daniel. “If you read the menu, it’s set out in three separate sittings: hors d’oeuvres hour which is between 5 and 7, the main sitting between 7 and midnight and then supper which is between midnight and 3 in the morning. It is like being on a train. At the same time, though, we don’t want to play that up too much either. The venue is a sexy, dark place – it’s beautiful, it’s not necessarily just the idea of a train carriage.”

The Toff in Town’s second bar area essentially acts as a moody performance space. With cabaret tables, low lighting and art-deco-esque décor, it provides a music and performance experience that goes beyond ‘the pub’ where Australians usually gather for band gigs.

“We want to do as much as we possibly can with the space. We want to be able to put on as many different kind of acts as we can – exciting things, whether it’s rock, metal, cabaret or comedy,” explains Daniel. “We want to show people a variety of interesting performances.”

Full to the brim, Curtin House may be miles away, in theory, from its original roots but its hallowed stairwell still echoes of a history that’s somehow seeped into its walls. Possibly, old Communist Party members are currently turning in their graves at the thought of their old haunt over-run by champagne-sipping city dwellers. Yet, Curtin House has never been so lively and popular with the public. Does Camillo have plans to wage any further takeovers?

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