The Marine Café – A Reflection

Today’s article is the second of a pair.  The first, Episode One, was published last week and recalled my own memories of Whitechurch’s Marine Café.  This week, Episode Two is a lightly edited version of George Biron’s vivid memories of ‘The Last Summer of Chris’s Restaurant’, first told in the Surf Coast Times, March 18, 2018 [ https://tinyurl.com/2bpxavue ].

George Biron, the internationally celebrated long-time owner/chef of ‘Sunnybrae’ near Birregurra, who earned his culinary stripes at Chris’s, paints a word-picture that leaks evocative reminiscences like a kitchen colander.  I trust he will forgive me for lightly editing the original.

Episode Two: Chris’s Restaurant

By the time I arrived in Christos Talihminidis’ kitchen, his little unpretentious 40-seat café had made its name for nearly a decade as the place to go in Lorne for honest, simple grills and sensational seafood.

Chris would start his day early at the pier, grabbing the finest seafood of the day and picking big sacks of crayfish—the local shorthand for the Australian Rock Lobster—and tubs of proper calamari.  Gemfish was the most popular fish du jour.

Chris would then make kakavia, the Greek fisherman’s soup, a pure pistachio baklava, and a mess of chocolate mousse, and finalise all the orders.  By the time I had started my day in the kitchen at 3.00 pm, Chris was already ensconced at a sidewalk table, spruiking the day’s catch to passing regulars and booking their tables in between visits to the TAB up the road to place the day’s bets.

Throughout the day, Stevie [also of Arab fame], Sammy [later of the Pier Restaurant], and all the other Greeks who ran much of the café scene in Lorne would enjoy gossiping over coffee.  By 1976, Chris’s younger brother Kosta and his wife Pam had left Chris’s to open their own café, Kosta’s, and Kosta would often drop by to ‘borrow’ a few cray.

The summer of 1978-79 at Chris’s was different.  Pressure was constantly being applied by big developers who had ‘found’ Lorne.  One of these, David Mariner, was always hovering nearby and urging Chris to sell so he could redevelop the site into the Cumberland complex we know today.  After a serious charm offensive, Marriner made an offer too good to refuse, and eviction was on the horizon.

Chris’s staff were a motley crew of local grommets, super smart university students, and a few seasoned hospitality tragics.  Many lived or camped out in the back of the shop.  It was a small restaurant with a small kitchen, but it catered for huge numbers.

Chris had devised a remarkably simple service system that echoed how Chinese restaurants operated.  One of the ‘young Einsteins’ would receive the orders and place the raw produce—a bowl of scallops, a couple of steaks, a clutch of calamari—and pass it on while relaying the whole service to the two cooks at the grill and stove.  He had to be an aboyeur and garde manger in one.

* Editor’s note: an aboyeur is the liaison between the dining room and kitchen, while a garde manger is the ‘pantry chef’.

Crays were dispatched with a quick cut through the head and down the centre for a swift death before going on the grill or under the salamander.  The seafood was seasoned with garlic oil, salt, and pepper, then broiled on the flat-top and served.  The crays were finished with a brandy sauce.  There was a genuine Greek salad with the finest feta and fresh herbs.

Then came the legendary roast potatoes!  It took me a while to fully grasp the lore of the potato.  It was always Christos who put the potatoes on at 4.00 pm, spreading out some eighty big, unpeeled but washed and dried spuds in a big, galvanised crate.  A second tray was prepared for the 9.00 pm sitting.  I’m not sure of the variety, but they weren’t Kennebecs.  By 6.00 pm, they were baked potatoes, but more was to come.  By 7.30, they had a crisp crust and by 9.30, they were nearly hollow with a crunchy skin and a smoky layer of silky spud inside.

One weekday night, just after I started, the delightful Bob Cowcher was due to arrive late after a flight from the States, and Chris kept us there to greet his friend with a special bottle.  I was worried that I only had three potatoes left—and they were rapidly shrinking.  As I was leaving, I apologised to Bob for the spud.  I can still remember his smiling response: “George”, he said, “ I have been dreaming about that potato all the way from New York.”  Now that’s what I call a signature dish.

Service started around 5.30 when families would come straight from the beach.  It would gradually build up to the first official service around 7.00 pm, with the early sitting finishing by 9 pm.  At the late sitting, a doorman [armed by Chris with a roll of $5 notes] would surreptitiously ‘bribe’ the parents’ teenage kids to “go and get fish and chips or play the pinnies” so that the older folks could relax over a bottle, a cray, or a big fillet steak.

There were usually three sidewalk tables, but on some nights the footpath would be packed with tables of diners right past the old post office.

The heat in the kitchen would peak around 8 pm as we made sure we were ready for the 9 pm sitting.  Chris had installed a clever pressure valve—a punching bag—that hung in the back corridor for Chris, his staff, and occasional diners to ‘consult’ when “le merde frapped le ventilateur”.  If we’re lucky, we could catch our breath before the nine o’clock rush.

The regulars would head into the dining room after 9 pm.  Christos knew exactly where to seat this “A-list” crowd—Joe and Patrice Saba had a table every night for eight or more, while Pinder, who was buying the Burley Griffin-designed knit-lock mansion ‘Jura’, and the rest of the diners would make up a gathering that would go well into the night.  Chris would work the floor, sampling the top-quality BYOs and generously flirting with his loyal patrons, while Penny made sure everyone behaved themselves in the background.  It was the toughest team I have worked with.

This last summer at Chris’s was a summer of love tinged with sadness because, of course, the bulldozers would soon descend to erase this sacred site, though luckily Rennie Ellis captured much of it on film for posterity.

The bulldozer blades forced Christos, Penny, and their son, Taki, to leave Lorne at the end of 1978 and move to Skene’s Creek near Apollo Bay, where Chris’s iconic Beacon Point Restaurant flourished for another 45 years until this year, when Chris, well in his 80s, sold it to the Memishi family https://www.chriss.com.au/.

While the sale of Beacon Point may have ended Christos’s glittering era, the Talihminidis dynasty lives on in Kosta’s three sons—Stratos at à la Grecque, Alex at Salonika, and Dom at Ipsos—all of whom are ensuring Greek fine dining remains an epicurean cornerstone of our coast.

John Agar

Feature Writer

A word from the chairman

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed a safe and sensible New Year and got a chance to see our amazing fireworks displays. (If you didn’t, you can’t blame me as, due to copy deadlines, I am writing this on December 17th but I am confident all will be well).

New Year is traditionally the time for making resolutions, to eat better, exercise more, drink less etc. I am not a fan of resolutions. They are made in the fog of New Year, broken in January, abandoned in February and put away in the cupboard for next year. I prefer setting SMART goals- SMART standing for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Don’t try to make too many and don’t be too hard on yourself if you have an occasional lapse, just get back on track. As we welcome our summer visitors, it is timely to reflect on water safety. The 2024-25 Drowning Report produced by Life Saving Victoria reveals an increasing rate of fatal and non-fatal drownings, especially among older men (65 years plus) and people of multicultural background.

There were 52 fatal drownings and 123 non-fatal drownings (an increase of 37% on the 10-year average) in Victoria in 2024-25.

Many of these drownings could have been avoided by the following simple rules:

• Always swim between the flags

• Never swim alone or after drinking alcohol

• Always check conditions and know your limitations

• Always wear a lifejacket when boating or rock-fishing

It is all our responsibility to protect our visitors from themselves and to call out dangerous behaviours. As we move into 2026, we look forward with anticipation and excitement to the redevelopment of the Point Grey precinct.

Following the community meeting on Sunday November 9th, a small group has been working with GORCAPA and the project architects to significantly change the internal layout of the blades January building that will be known as “The Co-op” to shrink the space allocated to toilets, increase the café space and provide the opportunity to showcase the rich history of the Point Grey precinct and Lorne.

By the time you read this column, you should have seen the revised design which has been accepted and endorsed by the Lorne Historical Society. While not everyone gets what they want, that is life!

What we now have is a building that will honour the heritage of the site with interpretive displays (more details to come) and extensive use of recycled materials from the old building and will respect the wishes of the majority of the Lorne community.

I would like to publicly thank the project architects for their understanding and creativity, and to thank GORCAPA for being willing to hear the voice of the community and to revisit the precinct plans. Now let’s get it done! Enjoy your January, stay safe and don’t forget to be bushfire and water safety aware.

Cheers

John Higgins Chairman

Lorne Ward Events Calendar

January

9 Mountain to Surf Run, 8:30am – 12pm at Lorne

9 – 27 Karen Stoneham Art Exhibition, open daily at Lorne Community Connect

10 Pier to Pub Swim, from 11am at Lorne

16 Deans Marsh Market, 10am – 12pm

16 – 18 Deans Marsh Sheep Dog Trials, 7.30am-5pm at Deans Marsh Reserve

24 Lorne Market, 9-3pm www.lornemarkets.com/