It’s not often that you associate an up-and-coming restaurant with a community service organisation, but that’s exactly what makes Mission Australia’s Charcoal Lane restaurant so distinctive.
You can sense that Charcoal Lane is special as soon as you walk through its door. Created within a beautiful heritage building in Melbourne’s up-and-coming Fitzroy district, the restaurant features delicately hand painted ceiling panels.
The menu is equally unique – a fusion of modern Australian food and native flavours.Charcoal Lane was made possible through a partnership with the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS). It provides the opportunity for Aboriginal and disadvantaged young people to transform their lives through traineeships and apprenticeships within the restaurant.
The heritage building in which Charcoal Lane is located originally housed VAHS from 1973 until 1992. VAHS is not just a health service. As well as offering access to a wide range of services and programs it has always been a place where people gather, share stories and pass on wisdom.
Many of the people who visited VAHS also frequently congregated at the back of a briquette factory in Fitzroy/Collingwood colloquially known as ‘Charcoal Lane’ – the inspiration for our restaurant’s name.
People came to Charcoal Lane to enjoy each other’s company, to share a drink and a story away from the public eye. One of those people, Archie Roach, recently released a song of the same name in remembrance of the people and times of the Lane.
The new Charcoal Lane has a wonderfully appetising menu, which showcases the restaurant’s native influences.
We hope that Charcoal Lane will continue to be a meeting place for the community in the future and encourage you to experience the food first-hand.
For bookings or enquiries call: (03) 9418 3400 or visit www.charcoallane.com.au/contact/booking
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