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In 1973 when Leonie Bell became the first woman employed as an apprentice chef at the Sydney Opera House, she was only one of four female trainee chefs in the entire state of NSW.
She was 15 when her father took her by train from their Engadine home to The Summit Restaurant atop Australia Square, for an interview with Oliver Shaul who ran that restaurant and the catering contract for the brand new cultural centre, opened by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20, 1973.
Leonie Bell as the first female apprentice chef at the Sydney Opera House in 1973.
“I finished the School Certificate on Friday and started work Monday, the only girl with 39 other male apprentices,” she said.
“It was a tough gig, with a lot of deep-frying and a lot of cleaning of the deep fryer ... I’ve never touched a deep fryer since.”
Leonie Bell started her professional career almost fifty years ago at the Opera House as an apprentice at The Harbour Restaurant.Credit:James Brickwood
It was pretty basic cooking she said, recalling once having to scrape 50 kilograms of beef curry off the concrete floor of the Opera House into the garbage after a tub slid off a trolley leaving the Bennelong Restaurant.
Fifty years on, Bell, now 64, has traded her chef’s toque for a tour guiding headset at the Opera House, which this year celebrates half a century since opening.
To mark the start of its golden anniversary year, the northern broadwalk at the front of the UNESCO World Heritage listed site will re-open as a “retro” ’80s style fish and chip restaurant, from next Wednesday until February 4.
The new pop-up, named “The Harbour”, will pay homage to the original eatery on Bennelong Point, with checkered tablecloths, picnic tables and historical projections of the original self-serve restaurant, with its white plastic benches and tables.
The Harbour Restaurant at the Sydney Opera House, pictured on October 20, 1973, when the building was officially opened.Credit:Fairfax Archive
It will serve up old favourites such as seafood baskets with prawn fritters and potato scallops, but without, alas, the 1973 price tags when a dozen oysters cost $2.75; they are now $70 in the new restaurant.
“We are very excited to be working with the Sydney Opera House to bring classic nostalgia to the precinct.”
David Madden of Trippas White, Opera House caterers
Chef Lee Thompson’s seafood menu will feature basics such as fish burgers through to $120 seafood platters which include Tiger prawns, Fremantle octopus, gin-cured salmon, marinated mussels, grilled prawns, salt & pepper squid and grilled fish tacos. A picnic-ready takeaway menu is also available.
“The Opera House is a buzzing location over summer, and we’re excited to introduce a new pop-up experience as part of our 50th anniversary program,” said Sydney Opera House Chief Customer Officer, Jade McKellar.
David Madden, the General Manager of the Trippas White Group, which operates the catering contract for The Harbour, said his company was excited to be bringing nostalgia to the precinct.
An aerial shot of The Harbour Restaurant in 1973.Credit:Sydney Opera House
”It has been created for both the young and the young at heart, to celebrate the history of what the space once was and give visitors the opportunity to create new memories,” he said.
The northern boardwalk operated as a restaurant from 1973 until 2001, when an events marquee replaced it - which many considered an eyesore. It was dismantled in 2018, and in 2019 the Yallamundi Rooms opened as a function centre, fashioned from what was previously harbour-facing office space.
“It’s wonderful that the Opera House is kicking off the new year with the opening of The Harbour restaurant … with a range of world-class performances and experiences this summer, I hope as many people as possible can visit the Opera House and enjoy the very best of what our city has to offer,” said Minister for the Arts Ben Franklin.
Bell, who has worked as a tour guide at the Opera House since 2002, expects the pop-up, which will operate Tuesday to Saturday from midday to 8pm, will be popular with families during the school holidays.
Anne O’Sullivan, supervisor of the Harbour Restaurant when it opened in 1973.Credit:Kevin Berry
“This is more family focused with a menu that serves fish and chips with a view of the sparkly harbour and an amazing building ... I can imagine like back when I began, the northern boardwalk will be packed,” Bell said.
Bell remembers that the original restaurant was popular with some not-so-welcome visitors.
“Seagulls would frequently swoop to scavenge leftovers and the discarded crockery which littered the outdoor white plastic benches and tables at the Harbour Restaurant. There were no seagull dogs back then,” said Bell, referring to the dogs that patrol the food venues on the western boardwalk to stop seagulls swiping food.
The pop-up restaurant though will have the services of dog training company Mad Dogs and Englishmen’s seagull squad -12 specially trained border collies and kelpies which works at the Opera Bar and Kitchen - on standby should they be required to help patrons fend off the birds.
Like many Sydneysiders, Bell has a long history with the great white sails of this building.
After seeing her first opera, Prokofiev’s War and Peace as part of the 1973 opening celebrations, she fell in love with opera singing.
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She gave up restaurant work and studied opera at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, then headed to London in 1992 where she joined the English National Opera’s chorus. She is now back living in Engadine with her mother, after the death of her father who accompanied her to that first job interview.
“I never imagined I would be back working here - it is funny where life takes you.”
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The Sydney Opera House celebrates 50 years in 2023
- The original 1973 restaurant on the northern boardwalk – named The Harbour Restaurant – has had three different iterations.
- In 1973 it was a self-serve cafeteria-style restaurant which served sandwiches, roasts of the day, pate, quiche, fish and chips, sweet and sour fish, homemade meat pies and Danish pastries and mains like curried chicken and beef curry.
- In 1988 it became The Harbour Seafood Restaurant and had a seafood-only menu which served crayfish bisque, mud crab salad, fisherman’s baskets and fish and chips.
- In the 1990s it rebranded to 180 Degrees and became an a la carte restaurant.
- From 2001 an events marquee was erected at the site but it was considered an eyesore, unsightly and intrusive by heritage experts and members of the public.
- In 2018 the marquee came down, and in 2019 the Yallamundi Rooms, fashioned from what was previously office space, was opened as a function centre.
- The pop-up The Harbour restaurant runs from January 4 until February 4, 2023.
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