Miss Alexia reports – with her customary whimsy – on her date with George.
Words and photographs: Alexia Petsinis
I rouged my cheeks with more conviction than usual this morning. From a pile of frocks near my dresser, an embroidered lace shift with bell sleeves was selected to enclose a lunching body for the day. Its shade of spring-sky blue – not my usual tone, alas – one that could make an Orwell or even a Clooney look at you twice. On with a spritz of Nuit de Tubereuse.
Late again. Lunch with George.
‘You have been invited to the magnificent reopening of The George Ballroom…’ My shadow drew upon two Italianate cream doors with worn bronzed handles. Shadows had danced upon these doors since 1886, when the ballroom, on the first floor of St. Kilda’s George Hotel, first opened as The Terminus; a tea room and wedding venue brimming with lasses and dainty ladies-in-waiting. Like every good man I know, it has since journeyed from grandeur to dilapidation and back again.
“The ceiling had fallen through, about six of these wall panels had collapsed into piles of rubble and dust,” said Georgina Damm of Damm Fine Food, who had overseen the refurbishment. “It’s been about five or six months of artisans working from across Victoria to bring it all back.”
Ms. Damm (standing).
Inhaling the rustic charm of the refurbished space (and entrée’s poached marron black truffle risotto), I couldn’t help but imagine those who had dined, wedded, gossiped (and apparently rocked out) in this very room over the decades. What did they wear? Who were they in love with? Despite my youth, I felt strangely nostalgic. Lunch with George.
Even during the war years, when other hotels struggled through post-Depression slumps, the George Ballroom’s reputation as a place of earnest celebration remained untarnished. By the 1970s, the celebrations darkened to a more punkish persuasion as the renamed Seaview (1976) became the centre of Melbourne’s alternative music scene. “This room represents such a varied history,” Ms. Damm reflected. “Right here, someone had their first dance, and a rocker probably head butted someone too. You can sit in this space and so many things can happen.”
The clink of golden cutlery and banter of flute-waving gentlefolk (the blogger and media kind) echoed a symphony of its own under the room’s lofty ceilings. Negotiating a main course of richly spiced duck breast and grapes lacquered in liquorice, I allowed myself the pretence (if only for a minute) that I was a buxomly powdered aristocratic beauty from the early 20th century, waiting to dine with my betrothed. Following the lead of Count Shiva Singam to my left (who could set a better example for the finest genteel etiquette I ask?) I sat a little straighter in my chair, pushed my shoulders back, and sliced my food as though sifting for diamonds. Such spaces can move one’s imagination in this manner.
Today we raised our glasses to The George Ballroom. George is very much alive…and exuding more charm than ever.
The Ballroom is back!
Alexia Petsinis, info@voxfrock.com, www.alexiapetsinis.com
