Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent · A Deep in the Weeds Production

Eleonora (The Hardware Club, Melbourne) - inclusivity, welcome, real human contact, and the perfect bowl of pasta.

·33 min·2 clips

Eleonora says the restaurant should offer "somewhere to go to and someone to talk to" when life is hard.

1. Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent talks with Eleonora Rossi about The Hardware Club and inclusivity, welcome, real human contact, and pasta in Melbourne. 2. Dani Valent hosts the episode; Eleonora Rossi is venue manager at The Hardware Club, an independent restaurant in Hardware Lane. 3. The episode asks what an independent restaurant can offer in Melbourne when it tries to make people feel "at home." 4. Eleonora says The Hardware Club is "a small restaurant in another lane" with a cozy, casual Italian-trattoria service. 5. She describes an 18-person team with staff from Italy, Southeast Asia, Western Asia, Nepal, Australia, and the UK. 6. Eleonora says she and chef Lee both keep equality and inclusiveness central because the business has women in charge on both the floor and in the kitchen. 7. She says the restaurant's menu is "a journey" that reviews Italian recipes in a modern way and adds ingredients from different parts of the world. 8. Chili crab spaghetti gets singled out as the restaurant's "hero" dish and its most popular plate. 9. Eleonora traces her own path from studying languages and communication in Italy to a working holiday in Australia, then project management and hospitality qualifications. 10. She says Andrea invited her back in 2022 to manage a new concept built around "home away from home." 11. She says restaurants feel like "traveling, staying in the same place" because food, wine, spirits, and people keep creating new lessons. 12. Eleonora says COVID was hard for hospitality because the industry lives through contact with people, but she found support from a network of hospitality workers. 13. She says visa rules can be overwhelming, and her own permanent residency application has taken 10 years. 14. Eleonora says independent businesses are "small drop in the ocean" operations that struggle to be visible without big budgets or big networks. 15. She argues that regulars at The Hardware Club know staff by name and share daily lives with them, unlike venues that feel more about performance. 16. Eleonora says the restaurant wants to give people "somewhere to go to and someone to talk to" when life is difficult, including solo diners at the bar. 17. She says communication training gives a base, but real learning happens in daily interactions because every person has different backgrounds and ways of speaking. 18. Eleonora says hospitality in Australia and Melbourne feels open to queer people, while also noting there is still work to do. 19. The tone is conversational, practical, and personal, with Dani Valent asking detailed follow-up questions and Eleonora answering at length. 20. People who like independent restaurants, migrant stories, and hospitality culture will get the most from it; listeners wanting a fast food-news segment may skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent