The View From The Kitchen Under The Stairs

In The Tote's old bandroom under the stairs, the sunken, beer-soaked couch and miscellaneous instruments are gone, replaced by an industrial sink and surfaces so clean you could eat off them. It looks just like a regular kitchen, really, until you look up and see the hundreds of posters from bands passing through the venue coating the walls like the world's most irregular coat of paint. Under the gaze of that motley mosaic, leaning against the sink, is Brian Edwards (say it with me) — The Tote's new chef. Sounds improbable and until recently Edwards would have agreed.

"Andy [Portokallis, part owner] came to me and asked me if I was interested in doing food here and uh, at first I was like... 'no fucking way', you know," smiles Edwards. "It's part of its charm, The Tote, is the fact that it's a bit of a crusty kind of place where... well you wouldn't think of food basically. But then the more we kind of spoke about it I was like, you know what? I think it'd be a nice element to it."

"Nothing too wanky or pretentious or novelty or Americana or anything like that."

Edwards is in the unique position to provide that element. He's already established as a key member of East Elevated in Brunswick and artisan chocolate factory Monsieur Truffe, so you know he's got chops in the kitchen. But he's also a regular, and looking at the posters you can tell he gets "the history".

"I'm very aware of the fact that, you know, people love The Tote and they don't want a… people are very wary of change. So you wouldn't want to come in with anything that's too hipster or Design Files or whatever you know.

"I want it to be sort of more of a takeaway joint for locals who want to stop in... 'cause it's like braised lamb, mash and veggies you know, there's eggplant — it's good quality for like ten or 11 bucks," says Edwards. "It'd be so sweet just to pedal past on the way home and pick up a pretty delicious, yum meal for less than 15 bucks." A handy set-up, considering they'll be serving till around 2am on weekends, "depending on how hungover the chef is". 

"I think the main focus," say Edwards, "is really honest, kind of simple, but good value food. Like, nothing too wanky or pretentious or novelty or Americana or anything like that. Just stuff that, just kind of good quality, nothing too processed. We make a lot of it, well, almost all of it here. So there's a bit of a fast food meets a kind of homemade kind of vibe you know?

"So, there's the ethos —  that's a wanky word but, the spirit of what The Tote is — but it's still got to look to the future a bit as well. I think that's, hopefully, a positive way of saying the kitchen is a positive thing for the future rather than a gentrification of the area, which I think is the worst, possibly the worst, swear word that you can have you know, for anything that's like an iconic landmark."