What better way, the restaurateur answers Socratically, to usher in a semblance of normality, of buzzing, frenetic, good times, to connect to the world beyond our shores, to celebrate company and inject energy into a city that has food and culture at its heart, than to launch a new restaurant?

Hot on the heels of the unveiling of the long-awaited Society, Lucas Restaurants’ Grill Americano will open in 101 Collins Street in early 2022. The 140-seat venue will buzz with world city energy and fast-paced waiters, with cocktails and Tuscan butchery, with Italian wine and fresh seafood. It will also be laced with nostalgia, with Chris’ inspiration for the elegant marble, leather and dark wood-fitted space harking to Venice, Milan and Turin, to Harry’s Bar and the warm, “clubby” Italian restaurants in which Chris has always felt at home.

To achieve his version of the aesthetic, not to mention the ability to cook using ancient techniques such as wood fire, his team has gutted three shops fronting Flinders Lane in 101 Collins and timber-clad its walls. In the centre of the new kitchen sits a handcrafted stonework wood oven custom-built by a manufacturer in Naples. Alongside it, they are building a large open barbecue pit and, naturally, aperitivos will be shaken behind a grand marble bar – because, he tells One Hundred and One, “you can’t have a restaurant in Italy without a beautiful marble bar.” 

For all its meticulously planned details, though, Grill Americano speaks to Chris’ childhood and of the eclectic region his parents came to from Greece. A second-generation Greek opening an Italian restaurant inspired by Mediterranean flavours and named after America: it is Melbourne through-and-through. From about the age of five, Chris grew up helping his chef and publican father at the family pub in Geelong, where his father spoke Turkish, Greek and Italian and cooked with an inclusive view of the Mediterranean, celebrating as one rich cuisine the flavours of North Africa, Istanbul and Sicily, the Aegean, Antibes and Spain. Grill Americano will soak up all of those influences, avoid strict definitions and let a sense of warmth and style infuse the order of day – to a point. 

“Every restaurant has to speak of the origin of the concept. Grill Americano is all about championing the wood oven and cooking food over charcoal and fire,” Chris says, as he looks forward to the prospect of serving an array of fantastic fresh produce cooked using methods that are rarely available in a commercial environment. Bistecca Fiorentino and grilled fish will feature alongside oysters, crayfish and calamari. Pasta will be fato a casa and the wine list, focusing on Italy and Victoria, will pair with immaculate cicchetti. 

It was also Lucas’ parents who instilled a strong work ethic and deep sense of hospitality in him, and who, as immigrants whose lives revolved around hard graft, wanted him to pursue a career in pharmacology and avoid the restaurant industry. Their dream was always to send their children to university, which they did, but “you start off trying to please your parents but then you realise you have to follow your passion,” remembers Chris. He aims to instil their care and rich sense of culture into Grill Americano, while also making sure it has a sense of old-world style, “but it won’t be ostentatious, it will be very egalitarian – which, by the way,” he adds, “is very Australian.” 

He might not hold political title, but something Chris has going for him, in a leadership sense, is nearly 40 years’ of hospitality nous – and he intends to not only keep going, but to use it for the good of the city he loves. Now, in his view, is probably a more important moment than ever to step away from the negativity wrought by the last 20 or so months and to create, instead, a sense of social community and revitalisation in Melbourne. “It’s about giving people places to be together again,” he explains. “We need to give them a reason to come back to our city.” 

In its small way, let preparations for Grill Americano’s arrival, then, be a timely symbol of emergence after a dark time. In the same way that Harry’s Bar connected Europe with the USA, Lucas Restaurants’ jaunt to a bygone era may help heal Melbourne in ways it might never have imagined. “Restaurants are the lifeblood, the essence of what creates a city. If it wasn’t for that nightlife, a city would be made up of a lot of tall buildings,” Chris says. “The job that lies ahead of us is to rebuild the city... put all the trauma behind us and we try to get on with life again. People are desperate to celebrate again and eat and drink and do all the things we miss.” 

He has no doubt that Melburnians will rise to the occasion. We’ll raise a round of Bellinis to that.