Treat yourself – for goodness sake

When stores as delectable as Pana Chocolate move in to a precinct, you know the place has style.

At the top end of Church Street, close to your boutique accommodation at 381 Cremorne, this inviting little shop will be the perfect pause in an afternoon of pleasant browsing among the laneways and interesting galleries. Very chic, very elegant, and very enticing.

Of course you can get a good coffee because what’s better than coffee to go with a little mouthful of delectable chocolate?

This is the first dedicated Pana Chocolate store in Melbourne. There’s one in Alexandria in New South Wales, and you’ll find satellite shops in Yarraville and Collingwood, but this is the real deal.

They’ll tell you what’s not in it first (no gluten, no dairy, no soy), but just as important, it’s what’s in it that will make you smile. Chocolate, as we know, is high in vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants, for starters. Add in dark agave nectar and organic cinnamon – you get the picture.

The name is that of the man whose dream this is: Pana Barbouris. Like so much of the food being prepared and sold in this precinct, it’s about making good things in a sustainable way, so you know the cocoa beans that go into these bars and individual chocolates have come from a good place.

Yes, you can buy online, and yes, they have gift vouchers. But for goodness sake, treat yourself to a delicacy from Pane. It’s guaranteed to make you smile.

Pana Chocolate is at 491 Church Street, and is open from 10am-5pm weekdays, Sat 10am-4pm, and Sun 11am-3pm.

You can update a hotel, turning it into a sophisticated and lively bar cum bistro, but that doesn’t mean that old-fashioned good-time feel has gone.

Royal Saxon fronts Church Street at the Cremorne end of Richmond, and its cool exterior is much as it was back in the days when this precinct was more about work than play.

Behind that façade, it’s been superbly renovated, opening up into a series of inviting open spaces, including Mediterranean style internal courtyard and glassed-in eatery.

The name might sound like bangers-and-mash territory but it’s actually all about the flavours of Italy. Head chef Simone Righetto is from Veneto, on the north-east coast of Italy, so expect perfect pasta and risotto as well as gourmet pizzas.

This is casual dining, an easy drop-in style place, with brilliant craft beers and a carefully selected wine list. When it really starts to warm up is after 9pm, and on the weekend it’s the place not just to eat but also to be seen. A young crowd out for a good time.

Choose your space to suit your mood: restaurant, upstairs bar and balcony or courtyard. While not exactly a music venue, they take their music seriously, and that’s why, as the evening wears on, there’s a great atmosphere to enjoy.

So, if your stay at 381 Cremorne is during the week, you could try Royal Saxon for a late-evening Italian-style meal in stylish surroundings. If you’re around on the weekend, and ready to enjoy yourself, then get down Church Street to this revamped and very popular bar and bistro. It’s open until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, until 11pm on Sundays.

Royal Saxon is at 545 Church Street, Richmond, directly across the road from the fabulous old B&M building, a classic example of Victorian federation architecture with its red brick pillars and cream trim.

Out for a good time

You can update a hotel, turning it into a sophisticated and lively bar cum bistro, but that doesn’t mean that old-fashioned good-time feel has gone.

Royal Saxon fronts Church Street at the Cremorne end of Richmond, and its cool exterior is much as it was back in the days when this precinct was more about work than play.

Behind that façade, it’s been superbly renovated, opening up into a series of inviting open spaces, including Mediterranean style internal courtyard and glassed-in eatery.

The name might sound like bangers-and-mash territory but it’s actually all about the flavours of Italy. Head chef Simone Righetto is from Veneto, on the north-east coast of Italy, so expect perfect pasta and risotto as well as gourmet pizzas.

This is casual dining, an easy drop-in style place, with brilliant craft beers and a carefully selected wine list. When it really starts to warm up is after 9pm, and on the weekend it’s the place not just to eat but also to be seen. A young crowd out for a good time.

Choose your space to suit your mood: restaurant, upstairs bar and balcony or courtyard. While not exactly a music venue, they take their music seriously, and that’s why, as the evening wears on, there’s a great atmosphere to enjoy.

So, if your stay at 381 Cremorne is during the week, you could try Royal Saxon for a late-evening Italian-style meal in stylish surroundings. If you’re around on the weekend, and ready to enjoy yourself, then get down Church Street to this revamped and very popular bar and bistro. It’s open until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, until 11pm on Sundays.

Royal Saxon is at 545 Church Street, Richmond, directly across the road from the fabulous old B&M building, a classic example of Victorian federation architecture with its red brick pillars and cream trim.

Easy to see why it’s so busy

Breakfast and lunch: very important down this end of Church Street, which is very good news for visitors staying in Richmond’s most desirable new boutique accommodation, 381 Cremorne.

Don’t be alarmed by the crowds. Yes, Top Paddock is a busy eatery, but that’s because its reputation is so strong.

You can see it from the way there so often seems to be little groups of hungry people hovering near the doors, and from the way the super-efficient staff deal with every new arrival in a brisk and easy manner.

Maybe it’s the name that first draws attention. While the long paddock is that bit of land running alongside roads where animals can graze for free, the top paddock is notoriously that place where the ‘roos run a bit wild. That is, are a bit loose. That is, not quite sane.

The only thing insane about this place is the quality of the food, which is very good indeed. It’s casual and functional inside, lots of gleaming wood and polished surfaces.

The menu runs from toast to trout, with top-notch coffee and everything else of the best quality, which is why it looks so good and tastes even better.

Enjoy browsing in this corner of Richmond, with the up-and-coming Cremorne laneway district on one side and, on the other, the bridge across the Yarra that crosses the Capital City walking and bike trail.

It was once the place to go for warehouse shopping; before that, this part of industrial Richmond was all factories and depots. Those brick walls, now so prized by renovation architects, were really just pure function.

Now, this precinct is peppered with upmarket design showrooms and fabulous restaurants like Top Paddock. Great place for people-spotting: you never know who you’ll see at the next table.

The thinking behind Yarra City Council’s street art projects is, if you can’t beat them, encourage them.

With so many enticing concrete walls along the railway line that dissects the suburb, not to mention bare factory and warehouse walls along the many intriguing laneways, tagging and graffiti were becoming a problem.

So, rather than trying to say “no” all the time, the council decided to say “yes”, and support public art projects that embrace the street style.

Just around the corner from the very stylish 381 Cremorne boutique accommodation, you’ll find some very stylish street art.

Running the length of the railway tunnel wall there’s birds, flowers, sports and people, all the usual tagging designs plus lots of local references both to indigenous and neighbourhood history.

There’s also a big portrait of someone’s dad, a tribute that is both startling and poignant.

The street art in this precinct, some of which is fading and weathered, other parts newly shining, is like a pictorial map of this most vibrant of Melbourne suburbs, which is one of the oldest and most fascinating in the urban landscape.

The artists for the Stewart Street project were Kim and Dale Nicol, and VicRail and the site managers were so impressed with how they transformed the station entrance they then commissioned further artwork along the wall fronting the carpark.

That success has led to more. In Post Office Lane, off Victoria Street, Yarra City did an upgrade in 2014, which included a big artwork along a wall (including rolladoor entrances) by Reko Rennie.

Reko is associated with the indigenous Kamilaroi people, and his “Welcome” artwork includes that word in the language of Melbourne’s traditional owners: “Womenjika”.

The good stuff seems to have worked. You’ll still see the odd scribble and tag, but with the bar raised by artists working in the graffiti style, well, you have to be good to go public.

t’s the eclectic mix of architectural styles, all sitting comfortably but sometimes surprisingly together, that gives the Cremorne and Richmond precinct its characteristic look.

When you set out from the stylish elegance of 381 Cremorne boutique accommodation to explore or shop or maybe pick up a coffee, every street and laneway offers an interesting blend. You don’t have to be a connoisseur of architecture to enjoy what the precinct has to offer.

Many of the grander premises were built at the end of the 19thcentury in the Marvelous Melbourne years, when goldrush money came flooding in. Nowadays, you’ll find many of the hotels, banks and utility buildings have been re-adapted to become homeware shops, cafes, or speciality businesses.

To see the most talked about example of adaptive re-use in Richmond, cut through into Church Street to Abinger Street, which runs parallel with Swan Street almost up to the Bridge Street intersection. You’ll see Malthouse Apartments, also known as The Silos, rising above the terraces as you head up Abinger Street.

The boat-like apartment building, designed by the renowned architect Nonda Katsalidis, is built around industrial silos, a masterpiece of adaptation, everyone agrees. What they argue about is whether such a striking contemporary building fits into the design of the area.

You can make up your own mind, but as you contemplate the jutting prows of the apartments’ balconies, you’ll notice there’s a great deal of very modern living going on around The Silos. It might have looked incongruous in 1996, when it was built but now, stylish change is definitely fashionable.

As you walk back along Church Street, you will see a very grandiose two-storey building at 293, which was built in 1888 by the son of the famous Peter Lalor, who led the Eureka Stockade and became then one of Australia’s most famous 19thcentury politicians. It’s very ornate, with its heavily ornamented columns and arches (and there’s a story that Lalor, who died there, haunts the place).

For something more modest, when you cross Swan Street and the railway line, turn left into Shamrock Street then down James Street, where you’ll find two of the oldest homes in Victoria, bluestone cottages side by side at 13 and 15, which are National Trust classified.

If all that history has made you thirsty and hungry, hop back on to Church Street where your only concern will be which of the many cafés and restaurants to choose. As Lalor would say, Eureka!

One of the best things about Cremorne and about the entire Richmond precinct is the way it’s developed in such interesting ways.

The new 381 Cremorne boutique accommodation is a perfect example. While it overlooks the sports and parklands sweeping down to the centre of Melbourne past the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, it also nestles among some of the oldest terrace houses in the state.

It also sits alongside an eclectic mix of businesses, not just design and advertising agencies, which have been there for decades, but also unique specialist places that take advantage of the adaptive reuse potential of the many warehouses in the district.

You won’t find too many businesses like Mid Life Cycles anywhere. In Cremorne Street, a short way in from Swan Street and the Richmond train station, this is all about the obsessive passion for classic and custom motor bikes.

Out the front, you’ll see a couple of stylish examples of what they are on about, motor bikes that are groomed with tender loving care, almost too precious to ride.

According to the men behind the business, this is as much about aesthetics as going for a ride. They are a kind of collective of like-minded enthusiasts, so they’re always up for a yarn about that classic Harley Davidson you once saw on the road to somewhere, or the dirt bike that looks like a gazelle on wheels.

The business, at 22 Cremorne St, is both shopfront and workshop, so it’s the place the aficionados go to get their bike customised to suit, but it’s also fun for a browse, if you’re in to retro style.

There’s a very busy café right next door too – but then, there’s a very busy café down almost every Cremorne and Richmond street these days!

The revitalising transformation of Cremorne and Richmond is very evident when you stroll around the top end of Church Street. The first to move in were the advertising agencies, lured by the warehouse space which adapts so well to creative industries. Then it was the website designers and architects, and you’ll notice, in your walks along the laneways behind 381 Cremorne boutique accommodation, many business nameplates by the doors of otherwise anonymous brick and iron buildings.

Now, it’s clearly “design central”, with all the prestige names well established in this stylish and interesting precinct.

When you wind down Cremorne Street, turn into Balmain Street, under the railway bridge to emerge onto Church Street, you’ll find yourself spoilt for choice – from the renowned contemporary style of Poliform furniture to the sought-after bespoke creations of the famous Designer Rugs.

Designer Rugs, commissioned to create carpets for visits by the Pope and the Queen, moved in to Church Street in 2014, part of the influx of upmarket design outlets that has given the precinct its flair.

Here’s just a selection of what else you’ll find in the vicinity: King Living at 559 Church Street, Misaru at 610, Arthur G at 618, Rugs Carpet & Design at 620, Space at 629, PAD at 630, Meizai at 658.

King Living is a big story about Australian design success, from their beginnings in Sydney to expansion across the country. Their new showrooms in Church is a perfect example of the gradual but now accelerating transformation of the precinct.

PAD Furniture, too, is a success story that is taking advantage of Cremorne’s optimistic shift towards quality and style. They started out 20 years ago in an outer suburb, but stepped up to Church Street about a decade ago, then into bigger premises in Church Street quite recently.

That business aims at being “original, distinctive and tasteful”, with a dash of difference. Very Cremorne!