An early review of late chef Bill Granger’s original Sydney cafe rated the food as only ‘average’ and there was no mention of scrambled eggs or avocado on toast.
Granger, who died of cancer in London on Christmas Day aged 54, would eventually win international fame for his brand of casual dining but his first venture had a modest start.
At the time, Sydney Morning Herald critic Ruth Ritchie awarded Granger’s food and service a paltry 4 out of 10 and declared the coffee ‘not good enough’.
The self-taught chef opened his eponymous bills with little fanfare in October 1993 after renting a re-modelled old inner-city hotel at 433 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst.
An early review of Bill Granger’s original Sydney cafe rated the food as only ‘average’ and there was no mention of scrambled eggs or avocado on toast. Granger is pictured (left) with fellow chef Michele Cranston at his first restaurant, bills
There was no sign yet that Granger would become ‘the king of breakfast’ and lead a cafe revolution which would see him establish outposts in Tokyo, London and Seoul.
Granger dropped out of university at 22 and started his cooking career at French bistro La Passion du Fruit in Surry Hills before taking a chance on bills with a budget of $30,000.
Ms Ritchie reviewed bills in the newspaper on January 4, 1994, weeks after the first coffee and light meals were served.
Some of the features that would make bills so popular were there from the beginning, such as the sun-filled open spaces and communal dining.
‘The kitchen is open and the room is flooded by sunlight and sparsely decorated with Swedish-look blond timber tables and chairs,’ Ritchie wrote.
‘An enormous oak table that seats about 14, where lone diners can chat or read, dominates one room.’
Ritchie noted there were separate menus for two sittings and the timings were strict – breakfast was served 7.30am to midday and lunch from midday to 4pm.
‘The food isn’t revolutionary,’ she wrote, ‘but there are some surprises: a wake-up call of freshly squeezed orange juice, wheatgerm, yogurt and bee pollen; toasted coconut bread, made on the premises and delicious.’
Granger, who died of cancer on Christmas Day, opened his eponymous cafe bills with little fanfare in late 1993 after renting a re-modelled inner-city hotel at 433 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst 9above)
Ritchie liked the lamb rump with roasted peppers, tapenade and rocket, ‘only to feel cheated when I saw the steak sandwich with roasted garlic and watercress served to someone else’.
Those options were considered a bargain, even back then, at $6.50, and desserts were priced at $3.50.
But Ritchie was unimpressed with bills’ version of a cafe’s most important offering.
‘The coffee was standard Darlinghurst fare and was not good enough for the excellent citron tart,’ she wrote.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s summary of bills in its first review of the cafe
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Overall, Ritchie gave both the food and service 4/10 – which was ‘average’ on the newspaper’s scoring scale – with atmosphere and value rated 7/10.
The review ended on a positive note with a reference to an absence of one of the staples of 1990s cafe culture.
‘Bills is not just a great room it is a completely focaccia-free zone and for this we give praise and thanks,’ Ritchie wrote.
An August 1995 review in the same publication put bills on a list of Sydney’s 20 hottest breakfast venues, referring to ‘the queues, the big table, the library of magazines, and overly groovy crowd’.
‘Wrong,’ it continued. ‘Breakfast at bill’s is about one thing: corn fritters… fluffy batter, golden ears and plump capsicum piled up with roasted tomatoes, shoehorns of bacon, and rocket.’
Granger dropped out of university at 22 and started his cooking career at French bistro La Passion du Fruit in Surry Hills before taking a chance on bills with a budget of $30,000
The coffee had apparently improved and eggs made an appearance – ‘only scrambled, always perfect’.
A year later bills had made it into the the Herald’s Good Food Guide and he expanded with a second cafe, bills2, in Surry Hills.
By 1999, food connoisseur Terry Durack was writing about ‘the most famous scrambled eggs in the world’.
The New York Times would dub Granger the ‘egg master of Sydney’ and he would be credited with making avocado on toast the popular breakfast dish it is today by The Washington Post.
The first reference to bills in the media seems to have been published in late November 1993 in a piece by the Herald’s Short Black columnist Leo Schofield.
Schofield mentioned ex-Ravesis chef Michele Cranston was ‘rustling up simple food at Bill’s Cafe (Bill being Bill Granger, ex-La Passion du Fruit, ex-art student)’.
Some of the features that would make bills so popular were there from the beginning, such as the sun-filled open spaces and communal dining. Granger is pictured at bills
After Granger’s death from cancer, Cranston remembered those early days of bills in an Instagram post.
‘Just days before opening the doors on the first bills, we were standing near the big table talking about chairs, looking much as we do here,’ she wrote next to a picture of Granger and herself
‘A kindly neighbour passed by and seeing us standing in an empty cafe with our aprons, said “Don’t worry, they will come”. And weren’t those words prophetic.
‘Bill and bills became synonymous with sunshine, fresh flavours, welcoming spaces, stylish rooms and a friendliness that decades later still beams from the glowing interiors that now dot the planet.
‘Bill exported to the world Australian sunshine and a fresh approach to food and its hard to sit here today, on a typically sunny summers day and not remember the exuberance and fun of those early, busy, crazy days.’
