By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he headline for a Trip Advisor review about The Stag restaurant in Port Fairy says it all: Ryan Sessions is back!

For chef Ryan and partner Kirstyn, the decision to take over The Stag (1847) in March this year meant a return to the town where it all began, and where they enjoyed their greatest success.

The pair was widely known for their transformation of the Merrijig Inn, Port Fairy, which they took over in 2006 and raised to a level that saw the restaurant awarded one hat in its first year and two in its second. It was also named the best restaurant in country Victoria.

It was an extraordinary achievement for a young couple who grew up and trained in south-west Victoria, with Kirstyn having been born in Koroit and Ryan moving to Warrnambool from New Zealand as a child.

The pair met when Ryan started working as a young chef at Clovelly Restaurant, in Warrnambool, having finished his apprenticeship with the now-defunct Mahogony Ship Restaurant at Flagstaff Hill.

“It was really there (at Clovelly), that we started to really understand and appreciate food and wine and how they could work together,” Ryan explains.

Prior to that, he confesses, he wasn’t particularly passionate about cooking.

“At school, I was much better in the arts subjects, but I wanted a job where I could go surfing in the morning,” Ryan recalls with a laugh.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] R[/dropcap]yan’s flair with food saw him picked up by the celebrated Portofino’s in Port Fairy, at that time run by Andrew and Shane Clancey and considered the top restaurant in the area.

But it was only a matter of time, of course, until the Sessions wanted to run a restaurant of their own – and the Merrijig Inn beckoned.

“It was fabulous, but it was also exhausting,” says Kirstyn. “Seven days a week, working at that level, it takes its toll.”

In 2011, the pair offered the business to top chef Tanya Connellan and partner Liz Foreman who, wait for it, had previously run The Stag.

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“The idea was for us to get out of hospitality altogether, because we felt it had all got too much,” Ryan says.

The hospitality industry, however, had other ideas.

After starting “a 12-month break” that was to last only eight months, Ryan was offered head chef with the exclusive The Argus Dining Room, at Hepburn Springs.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan and he resigned after just four months in what he says was an “amicable” departure.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he Sessions returned to the south-west and, as Kirstyn explains, did a “whole lot of different things” including her working for Oscar’s Waterfront Boutique hotel in Port Fairy and Ryan helping out in the kitchen at various pubs.

“Did the patrons have any idea who was cooking their schnitzel?” I ask.

“No,” he laughs.

Patrons of The Stag, however, certainly know who is in charge and word has spread rapidly about the dynamic, bush-food based menu and all-Australian wine list.

Indeed, despite being open for only six months, the revamped restaurant was last month awarded one hat by The Age Good Food Guide.

And here Kirstyn tells me something I didn’t know: hats are awarded not just for the food, but “for the whole experience from the minute you walk in the door to the moment you leave”.

This means food, wine list, ambience, front-of-house (Kirstyn’s domain) and even the quality of glassware and cutlery.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]t is The Stag menu, however, that has gastronomes gasping.

Ryan sources all of his ingredients from within Australia and as close to home as possible, which includes foraging along the Port Fairy coast and using small-quantity producers such as Shaw River Buffalo Cheese (Yambuk), South Seas Abalone (Portland) and Great Ocean Ducks (Port Campbell).

“We also have a strong emphasis on using indigenous ingredients – plants, fruits and berries – and taking food back to what it was,” Ryan says.

And with that Kirstyn offers me a sample of ice plant – it is succulent and salty, and grown at Kingston, South Australia. While I will leave a full food review to those far more experienced than me, this one taste is enough to make me want to try the whole menu.

“Australia has a definite cuisine, but we are still discovering it,” Ryan says.

“There are 20,000 edible plants, for example, so we are really just touching the tip of the iceberg.”

[box]The Stag, 22 Sackville St, Port Fairy, is open for dinner only Tuesday- Saturday. Bookings: (03) 55 68 3229[/box]

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Words and photos by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] L [/dropcap]ong before online shopping and well before Target and K-Mart, there were places like Reicha’s in Terang, a clothing and haberdashery store that sold a bit of everything.

That “everything” includes things like buttons, bras and balls of wool; shoes, zippers, sunglasses and hats; hankies, dressing gowns, school uniforms and reels of cotton in every conceivable colour.

It is the sort of shop where customers can still run up an account and the wooden front counter has been polished smooth by the hundreds of hands with which it has made contact over the past 55 years.

But now Reicha’s, like so many stores of its kind that have already disappeared, is hanging on by a thread.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] O [/dropcap]wner Michael Reicha, who has worked in the family business for 26 years, is now 56 years old and while he has children of his own, he is a realist and knows their future will not be in the shop.

“We are losing the generations from our shops. They are no longer being passed on like they were because everything has changed with how we shop and where we shop, and so much of it is now online,” he says.

Reicha’s survives on the back of a base of loyal customers and providing, as Michael describes it, “the sort of personal service that you can’t get online, where people can see, feel and try something on and bring it back if they are not happy with it”.

The day of Bluestone’s visit, one of those regular customers was buying a rose pink dressing gown for her elderly mother, while another was browsing the lines of women’s tops. It might not be described as “jumping”, but it was steady.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] M [/dropcap]ichael’s co-worker Linda Kenna, who grew up in Terang, remembers when the two-storey shop had separate counters for men’s and women’s clothing, and the place was bustling with people buying balls of wool and lengths of fabric to make their own clothes.

“One whole wall was packed just with balls of wool,” Michael adds, laughing, “which is hard to imagine now”.

The story behind Reicha’s is one of tenacity and tragedy.

The business was started by Michael’s father, Les Reicha, a Lebanese migrant who originally settled in Geelong and – like Sir Fletcher Jones before him – bought a hawker’s van and travelled around the western district in the 1940s and 50s, selling his wares.

“He used to come down and sell clothing to the farmers and spend the night at the Noorat Hotel,” Michael says.

“Dad loved this area, loved the people, and so eventually he moved here and started in a shop across the road before buying this shop.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]ragedy struck, however, in 1973 when Les drowned at Peterborough while fishing. He left behind his wife, Elaine, and four children, including Michael who was aged just 13.

Elaine, who is still living, continued on with the business in Terang and a smaller shop in Cobden, while also raising her young family.

“I don’t know how she did it on her own, but Mum kept the shop going even with four kids,” Michael says.

And while Michael expects “Reicha’s” will come to a close when he eventually retires, he is pragmatic rather than nostalgic.

“It is coming to an end…and while it is a battle sometimes, it is still a good battle,” he says, smiling.

[box]Reicha’s Drapery is at 74 High St, Terang, in the 1916 Kelly Building’s which are set to be freshened up as part of a Corangamite Council owner incentive program. Reicha’s also have a store at 16 Curdie St, Cobden. No website and no Facebook page but drop in to either shop to see retail as it used to be.[/box]

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Comment – Carol Altmann

WE all know the ever-vigilant Maremma dogs have saved the population of little penguins on Warrnambool’s Middle Island, but it’s doubtful they can save the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village.

The 40-year-old tourist village made itself Maremma headquarters ahead of the national release of the movie Oddball, which gives a largely fictionalised version of the Maremma-penguin story and was filmed partly in Warrnambool.

Indeed visitors to Flagstaff Hill can, if they are there at the right time, meet the dogs and buy a made-in-Indonesia stuffed toy to help continue the Maremma program.

Flagstaff Hill manager and head of tourism for the Warrnambool City Council Peter Abbott has also been particularly active – and successful – in trying to generate media coverage for Oddball and its links to our city. (How we stop enthusiastic tourists from wading across to Middle Island itself is another matter).

But behind the scenes, Flagstaff Hill has just recorded its worst visitor numbers in a decade and it’s a long climb back to prosperity.

According to the council, Flagstaff Hill had 54,469 visitors in 2014-15 (excluding functions).

This compares to 60,000 in the previous year and continues the downward slide from the 81,000 that was recorded in 2003-04.

As council CEO Bruce Anson has said before, 80,000 is a break-even position.

This means at least another 25,000 people need to come through the front doors of Flagstaff Hill each year – not to show growth, but to catch up to where it was a decade ago and stop it bleeding around half a million dollars a year.

The “meet the canine stars of Oddball” is part of that plan. The other, even more significant part, involves another movie, if not quite as Hollywood as Oddball.

This is the $2 million being spent on updating the very-dated Shipwrecked sound and light show as part of a $3 million upgrade of the village.

What this new sound and light show will focus on has not been revealed, despite initial hopes to have the project up and running by now.

When Bluestone recently checked with the council, the project was still at the “expressions of interest” stage, which suggests it has not been easy to find the right people for the job, or perhaps $2 million is not enough to deliver what was hoped for.

In the meantime, the council is ploughing ahead with reconfiguring the front entrance (from memory, this is the third renovation of the entrance since the village opened) to blend the visitor information centre into the complex and improve access to Pippies restaurant.

The difficult truth, however, is that window-dressing the entrance and banking on movies to draw more people does not change the fact that the village itself will remain largely static.

This remains it’s biggest failing and the most common complaint from those who pay their entrance fee to find there is not much happening at all inside the cute buildings.

At best, Oddball will provide a visitor spike to Flagstaff Hill while the movie is fresh, and the new $2 million sound and light show may draw another 17,000 people a year until it, too, becomes dated.

The short use-by date of these attractions is why I would rather see the millions that are being spent on Flagstaff Hill plunged into our unique, permanent attractions that don’t date.

I am talking about our incredible natural environment and rich indigenous heritage.

We live on one of the most accessible and spectacular coastlines in the world with a rich indigenous history that is only now beginning to be taken seriously by tourism authorities, although there is still a long way to go.

Imagine what Tower Hill could do with $2 million of state funds? A fabulous bush foods cafe/restaurant might be a start.

Imagine how far $3 million would go in developing and promoting a trail linking Point Richie/Moyjil, to Tower Hill and on to the Budj Bim landscape around Lake Condah, Mt Eccles and Tyrendarra? The Budj Bim area is considered so special, it is on the verge of gaining World Heritage status and we should be ready.

If Warrnambool wants to pull tourists further along the Great Ocean Road, then this is how to do it: by becoming the jumping off point to an enduring and unique landscape and culture that fascinates people from around the world.

Tie this culture and landscape to quality accommodation, food and wine trails, biking and hiking and you have an attraction that is much more dynamic and organic than a static village.

This is the sort of long-term thinking required if we really want to see cameras and action, rather than a “spike” that lasts about as long as the popcorn.

ARCHIVED

Bluestone columnist and architect CLINTON KRAUSE previously worked in Daylesford before relocating his business to Warrnambool. Clinton explores the retro styles that gives our region so much character.

With family roots going back to the settlement of Port Fairy and a long association with retailing in the region, Claire and Tony Drylie are well known throughout the district.

Claire’s emergence as an artist has also brought her work to the attention of our arts community and her intriguing dioramas assembled from religious iconography, retro kitsch and other plastic flotsam and jetsam also just happen to provide a hint of the private lives of this dynamic couple.

I recall my first visit to their home as a visual feast of colour, chaos and clutter that nearly threatened to overwhelm the senses.

It is as if Tony and Claire are actually residing within one of Claire’s complex art assemblages.

An extensive collection of pottery, retro furniture and art sits cheek-to-cheek with the ephemera of kitsch tourism souvenirs, plastic dolls and other miniatures.

Grouped collections of hats, pottery, clocks, genie bottles, cats, Madonnas, donkeys, lamps, ice buckets, and tea sets occupy every available nook and cranny.

The mayhem extends out into the garden where a mob of concrete kangaroos greet you at the entry, metal work sculptures adorn every wall, and pots of every size and colour contain curiously shaped cacti and other exotic plants.

To say that ‘Tony and Claire “like to collect” is an understatement and I set about uncovering the origins of this passion.

“It started with a pot in Tasmania,” reveals Claire.

Knowing nothing about Australian pottery at the time, she was captivated by the strong colours of the glaze and the unusual soft and rounded form.

Further research lead to an appreciation and interest in Australian pottery which sparked the pursuit of unusual, quirky and interesting pieces.

This lead to regular visits to local auctions and garage sales throughout the southwest, where the couple’s interest expanded to other areas such as retro furniture, wall art, ceramics and anything that had a certain style or quality of design.

Claire’s artistic eye for great design and a bargain was put to good use when she started selling pieces at a small stall in the Drill Hall at Port Fairy.

Whilst hugely popular with the buyers, Claires mix of retro, kitsch and shabby was at odds with the “serious and staid”  antique collections of the other stallholders and when a chance came to open her own shop back in Warrnambool, the couple jumped at it.

With Tony out the back restoring timber furniture and Claire filling the walls of the commodious space in Fairy Street, their business ‘Alternative Antiques’ became a must-visit destination amongst tourists and locals alike.

Fast forward to 2010 and with the couple having kept the supply and restoration of  inventory going for well over 10 years, it was time to move on.

The shop had become such an institution that Claire recalls loyal clientele actually getting a bit “bolshy” and emotional when told that the couple were winding down.

During the years of the business, a vast repository began to accumulate – a common practice at most auctions is to offer the best pieces thrown in together with ‘job lots’ of items that are impossible to sell.

Claire’s boundless creative energy found a use for all this detritus and she began to experiment with boxed dioramas of religious items, small scale figures and other items that, when assembled, create a narrative for the viewer to explore and interpret.

She is now establishing herself as an artist with the ongoing exploration and evolution of these unique installation pieces and was awarded the runner up prize at the inaugural Southwest International Women’s Day Art Prize in 2015.

This knack for arrangement has been given full flight in the styling of their home and the walls are adorned with montages and groupings of both themed and disparate objects which all seem to come together in a visually pleasing symphony of colour, form and wit.

Oh, and the story of the shell dolly?

Well, there was a girl down the road who had the most beautiful doll young Claire had seen and despite insistent pleas to her mother, it was dismissed as being far too kitsch and common to be bestowed as a gift.

All is good now though, because Claire has a whole shelf of shell dollies, and shell boomerangs, and souvenirs, and hats, figurines, seats, vases, masks, radios, lamps, pots , prints, cushions, caravans, clocks, tea sets, dinnerware, ice buckets, robots…………………………………………

[box]ROY REEKIE is running as an independent in the by-election for South West Coast. Here he writes about improving the rail service:[/box]

[quote]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]n what’s been a confusing by-election so far, we have our first certainty. The South West will get its extra daily train service.

Last Wednesday, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy stood at Warrnambool station, flanked by a bank of dark suits, to announce that ‘a Coalition government’ would introduce a fourth daily service from Warrnambool; that is, IF the Coalition is elected back into government in 2018 or some election beyond. That’s not much of a guarantee. There are too many ifs and too much waiting.

I can go one better.

If I’m elected as your independent member for South West Coast on 31 October, I  guarantee that we will have an additional daily train service out of Warrnambool by this time next year.

I will also work with the community and the government to reform our train service to improve comfort, reliability, frequency and guaranteed, no excuses inclusion of people with mobility issues. I will make the train service safer and more convenient for  older people and young families. I will work on the government and the opposition to achieve a long term infrastructure investment plan for track upgrades and duplications so that our future rail services are faster, more comfortable and modern.  This is what’s required; not just a promise of an additional train here and there.

How will I do this? On Wednesday next week , I will announce my comprehensive rail policy at Warrnambool station just prior to the lunchtime train. Then, you need to vote on October 31 to make South West Coast marginal. If I’m elected, I’ll take it from there and deliver what we need.

I welcome the Coalition’s commitment to an extra train service. I don’t think it goes far enough or will happen soon enough, but I welcome it. And I say this to Mr Guy and Mr Walsh: if I’m elected, I expect your full support on the floor of the Parliament on this issue.

Roy Reekie

Ferguson Street Warrnambool.

(PO Box 882 Warrnambool 3280

Facebook: Roy Reekie, Independent candidate for South West Coast)