Café
In mid-2005 Danny Colls had 67 staff and was running a business that produced more than 20,000 cups of coffee a week. From the mid-1990s to early 2000, Colls put his stamp on some of Melbourne’s showpiece coffee venues – Café Racer, Postal Hall, Coffee Darling and Federal Coffee Palace. But he was burning out. Slowly he sold them off. St Kilda institution Café Racer was the last to go in May last year while Colls’s parents still
When he opened Liaison, it was late 2008 and his focus had altered. He’d met Siany McLaine and says “she gave me someone to show off in front of again”. They were in the city, admiring the stunning architecture of Monaco House, when they met the consul himself.
“An hour later we were drawing up the agreement for a café,” says Colls. He and McLaine run the café as though they are operating a kitchen in their own home. Effervescent Colls chats merrily as he operates the espresso machine and calm, efficient McLaine is in charge of most of the ingredient-proud food. You’d never guess they manage to serve 350-400 people a day.
Barista
While single-origin beans and alternative brewing methods have become the trend at every new café, barista and café owner Danny Colls has stuck to the classic Genovese Super Brazil espresso blend that he’s been using for more than 10 years. “Genovese Coffee is 40 years old,” says Colls. “The old man was roasting and blending coffee before most of today’s baristas were born.” Colls still crafts an excellent drop of espresso in anyone’s terms. For him, it’s about ensuring his customers have a consistent product in their busy, unpredictable lives. Colls says hospitality is the key. It’s sage advice for any café owner or operator.
Dream team: Siany McLaine and Danny Colls say hospitality is the key.
DARRIAN TRAYNOR
Sip this
Liaison, Monaco House, 22 Ridgway Place, Melbourne
Barista \ Danny Colls
Coffee \ Genovese
Barista’s choice \ Double espresso
Open \ Monday-Friday 7am-4pm
Beneath the striking contemporary sculpture of Monaco House and tucked into one of Melbourne’s renowned laneways, this intimate modern café at the Paris end of town is a haven for jaded city workers. The tiny space features black-tiled floors and counters and a glossy postcard-blue feature wall. Red trimmings on walls and in stools, a crowded communal table and a humming central kitchen-cum-barista station provide colour and movement, while fresh late-autumn blossom and bags filled with tulip bulbs add a homely caress.
The coffee here is “old school”, or what some now call second wave. But if you’re over “third wave” places offering too-fresh, acidic coffee and lazy milk texturing, sit back and savour the perfectly textured gossamer stain of milk atop a short macchiato that sings with subtle, nostalgic notes of chocolate and hazelnut.
