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It all feels seamless. Effortless, even. As if the room simply anticipates you.
Utter your name at the door of Gimlet and there’s a sense that a stylish host dressed in a sharp suit or Scanlan Theodore number may know who you are. There’s a strong chance they already do.
It’s a big part of what has made Gimlet one of the best restaurants in the world. A beacon for everyone from the Obamas to billionaires, socialites to tourists, celebrities like Harry Styles and families celebrating special occasions to foodies eager to see what all the fuss is about.
Nothing is left to chance in Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann’s Trader House hospitality empire, particularly within the walls of its glittering crown jewel, Gimlet. Every ingredient, every dish, every interaction part of a carefully thought-out performance designed to entertain and keep guests wanting – and ordering – more.
Even at an unremarkable midweek lunchtime sitting, almost every seat is filled. The near-constant ring of a kitchen bell cuts through diners’ chatter, the soft click of utensils on glass as a host whips up tableside steak tartare, and a seltzer machine bubbles away at the bar.
Menus are printed twice a day, front-of-house staff forbidden from wearing dark nail polish and each discussion with diners guided by what some have come to call the dictionary of Trader House. Open-ended questions such as, “How was your food?” are banned. Try, “How did you enjoy the steak?” instead. Don’t say “unfortunately” there are no bookings available, go with “I’m afraid”– it’s less negative. Umms and aahs are to be kept to an absolute minimum.
Guests are Googled before arrival, any whiff of influence noted before being cross-checked with an extensive internal booking system and staff given a rundown of VIPs coming in before each service. Many high-end establishments take records, but few do it so diligently in Melbourne.
Australian restaurants are ineligible for Michelin stars, but Trader House has created a system of its own. Frequent diners, certain media, friends of the business and industry figures are flagged as one-star customers. The highest honour – three stars – is reserved for international celebrities, politicians, business leaders and a handful of diners who spend tens of thousands of dollars a year across the group. Nothing would be too much effort. Obscure wines ordered in especially, a table ready at a moment’s notice or off-menu dishes perfected to their liking. Visitors who’ve never had Vegemite may even be treated to a taste of the local curiosity.
For repeat diners – even mere mortals – there is no escaping the profile system. Used across the entire Trader House group, records stretch back years. Want to propose to your partner at Supernormal? With advance notice, a host can try to place you at the same table as your first date.
Every dish, every drink, every inclination noted. From favourite wines to preferred side of the table, from tap or sparkling water to whether they’re likely to forego dessert. How quickly they like their food served, how long they linger at a table and if they’re likely to be snappy with staff. If a diner is deaf in one ear. The names of people they could be dining with are there.
It even extends to people who have never set foot inside a Trader House restaurant. Australian Financial Review rich-listers have a profile, just in case.
Trader House knows exactly what a guest wants and precisely how they want it – often before they realise it themselves.
Hospitality insiders expect nothing less in a restaurant group established by McConnell, one of Melbourne’s most successful chefs-turned-restaurateurs with an exceptional eye for detail who has for years influenced how the city eats.
Other venues Cumulus Inc, Supernormal and Marion – among others – each with their own distinct identity, are enduringly popular and often booked out.
The boy from Balwyn had already become a towering figure in the dining scene before Gimlet swung open its doors in the depths of the pandemic. But the high-end European-style diner bathed in soft butterscotch lighting upped the stakes and propelled him firmly onto the global stage.
Recently taking on more of a creative, less day-to-day role, McConnell has surrounded himself with the best in the business. He shuns the spotlight but the omnipotent founder is still known to jump in at any moment with an opinion about cutlery, artwork, anything.
After all, despite the success, accolades and power, he isn’t above trimming the plants at Gimlet himself, on occasion.
The secret deal behind the end of a Spring Street era
It took just 15 minutes for McConnell to acquire what will be his highly anticipated next venture – a French and Spanish-inspired restaurant named Côte Basque, due to open this winter.
This sort of business deal would usually take much longer, but longtime Becco owner Simon Hartley had a long list of people to whom he’d never contemplate handing over the lease of his iconic Italian eatery.
Just around the corner from Pellegrini’s and a magnet for the Spring Street crowd (as well as the late Beatle George Harrison), this near three-decade old institution couldn’t be entrusted to just anyone. Only one name made it onto Hartley’s list of possible successors.
McConnell visited a couple of times and that was it.
“It was like handing over the baton, possibly to Carl Lewis,” Hartley said, referencing the nine-time Olympic champion.
“I felt very, very secure about it.”
What sealed it for Hartley, above McConnell’s seemingly Midas touch? A type of humility which just “doesn’t happen” with other restaurateurs, he said.
“The way he does it is just humble. He doesn’t jump up and down or sing and dance. He just goes about his business,” Harley said.
McConnell’s publicist insists he is discreet and modest, knocking back most media requests. He declined to be interviewed for this series profiling restaurant tycoons, despite two approaches through his publicist and one directly by text message. However, McConnell is simply too influential to ignore.
“I do appreciate the opportunity to comment, I haven’t done in-person interviews for many years,” McConnell said by text message.
“Believe it or not I prefer to stay out of the limelight, and keep the focus on the restaurants.”
A premier’s preference: Why Daniel Andrews prefers the diplomat of dining
Former premier Daniel Andrews is among Gimlet’s highest-profile customers. Political sources say his inner circle deliberately shuns venues owned by one of the other big players in the city’s dining scene, Chris Lucas.
Conversations about McConnell’s influence on Melbourne rarely come without a comparison with Lucas.
A sharp critic of the state Labor government during the pandemic, Lucas was one of the loudest opponents of former premier Daniel Andrews. A blistering interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell was described as a “tear-here” moment for calls to end lockdowns, while Andrews’ wife Catherine attempted to make a booking at one of his venues but was told a table was unavailable.
But even at the height of a tumultuous March 2020, when Gimlet’s grand opening was scuppered by the city’s first lockdown, McConnell remained tactfully apolitical. His harshest criticism was revealing “a bit of anger” months later and signing an open letter calling for hospitality venues to reopen safely.
Approached by email, the former premier wouldn’t mention Lucas by name and only had praise for the other big hospitality boss in town.
“Andrew McConnell is pure Melbourne: high quality and relentlessly positive,” Andrews said in early March.
“He runs Melbourne’s best restaurants – just ask his staff and his patrons.”
Inside the quiet life of a $20 million ‘art nerd’
“The most important person is the customer,” McConnell said in a 2018 interview with ANZ’s Bluenotes focussing on his business success.
“Often I find a lot of chefs slave away in the kitchen for too many years and they forget they are actually cooking for people outside that door.”
Oliver Shorthouse, who founded premier fresh fruit and vegetable supplier Ramarro Farm as a weekend side hustle while working with McConnell, remembers him peeking out at diners. Now a supplier, he can always tell when his old boss is shaking things up.
“When he’s in a restaurant, you know it – we start getting requests [like] ‘we want displays of big artichokes’, or ‘can you bring in half a fig tree to put on display?’,” Shorthouse said.
“That level of creativity, attention to detail and focus on the guest experience is really what Andrew does brilliantly, apart from the culinary side.”
He is a chef first and foremost rather than a businessman, Shorthouse concludes, with a unique skill to present a dish in a particularly creative and beautiful way.
A self-described Melbourne boy, McConnell has attributed much of his success to gut instinct developed from growing up in the city, raising his family in the suburbs and knowing how people want to eat.
Frequently described as a family man, McConnell, 57, keeps a low profile. A photo of him and McGann at the Australian Open Men’s Final in 2025 is among just a handful of media photos of the couple in public.
“My relationship with Andrew works because we are both very considerate of each other,” McGann told Domain in 2022. “Our lives are very social, but we always make time for just the two of us. A priority for us is to stay connected despite the busy-ness of work and family life,” she said.
Described in the piece as “more involved in the business than she is keen to take credit for”, McGann is a professional photographer and has worked closely with McConnell for well over a decade. The couple recently sold their $20 million-plus Toorak mansion and bought a Robin Boyd-designed home in the same locale. But McConnell hasn’t always lived in luxury.
The eldest of six siblings from a Catholic family raised in Balwyn and Box Hill North, money was tight but a love of good food was instilled early, he recounted in this masthead in 2013.
Eating was treated as a ritual. McConnell’s parents ran a catering company, and as a 13-year-old he requested lamb brains for his birthday dinner mainly “out of curiosity and to annoy my siblings”, he told Dani Valent. All three McConnell boys found success in food; younger brother Matthew opened popular Mediterranean restaurant Bar Lourinhã, while Sean has Canberra haunt Rebel Rebel. Cousin Jason McConnell co-owns San Telmo.
He attended Bulleen’s sporty Marcellin College, where he was in the thirds football team, and worked at Marchetti’s Latin before starting his formal training at Capers in Kew. But he wasn’t always set on a career in food. “I was an art nerd but I also liked cooking, and it was easier to get a chef’s apprenticeship than get into art school,” McConnell told Valent.
By his late 20s, cooking for Madonna, Prince, Tom Jones and other celebrities was already in his rearview mirror, along with his first head-chef gig at Hong Kong’s M at the Fringe then Shanghai’s M on the Bund – both owned by Melburnian Michelle Garnaut. Between two overseas stints, he returned home and worked with pioneering chef Tansy Good.
From Good Food to Gordon Ramsay: Andrew McConnell’s string of hits
The last thing McConnell would want is for a diner to walk into a restaurant like Supernormal and think “that’s an Andrew McConnell restaurant”, he once told the Australian Financial Review.
“I have a great fear of becoming homogenised in what we do, so retaining a sense of individual personality is really important in every one of our venues,” he said.
Officially, the collection of restaurants founded by McConnell and various business partners now known as Trader House kicked off with all-day eatery Cumulus Inc. but its origins can be found in an unassuming iron lattice-clad terrace on Brunswick Street, in the same block as popular Fitzroy pub Labour in Vain.
Opened by Andrew, brother Matthew and Andrew’s ex-wife Pascale Gomes-McNabb, Dining Room 211 on Brunswick Street was a hit. Gomes-McNabb, a respected architect, was commended for its modern design, while the brothers McConnell were named joint Young Chefs of the Year in the 2002 Good Food Guide.
From there, the accolades kept coming. The then-couple opened euro diner Mrs Jones which then became Three, One, Two. He also took on Circa at The Prince Hotel, owned by Frank and John Van Haandel of Stokehouse fame, elevating the two-hatted restaurant to the coveted triple. By 2006, he won his first Chef of the Year gong.
Next came Cumulus Inc., where everything changed.
It was an early adopter of the no-bookings policy and so hundreds queued for a taste of a lightning-strike menu at the all-day eatery where everything simply worked. Dinner-quality food served at breakfast, champagne and oysters perpetually on order and ingredients firmly in the spotlight. Its signatures, tuna tartare and slow-roasted lamb shoulder – considered out of the box at the time – appeared on the menu during the first year and stayed there ever since.
The Flinders Lane rag-trade district was still transforming to a restaurant precinct when it opened in 2008. Cumulus’ striking interior, designed by McNabb, has barely changed, and has hosted everyone from Beyoncé and Jay Z to groups of students.
No one predicted what a success it would be. Least of all Josh Murphy, its first head chef.
“It was like a small kitchen, a small cool room, there was no back-of-house, there was only 65 to 70 seats. It sort of blew up out of nowhere,” Murphy said. “I wouldn’t be able to do it now, but you had to be young and we had to just run all day, morning to night.”
Shortly after, the Gertrude Street takeover. Cutler and Co, a fine diner in a former metal works factory, opened in 2009 followed by up-market pub Builders Arms Hotel, co-owned with Murphy (who now owns Beautiful Jim Key as well as Harley and Rose) and Anthony Hammond.
Wine bar Marion arrived in 2015. Described in the Good Food Guide as “often imitated but rarely matched”, it earned a legion of fans including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. “When I hear Michelin is in Dubai, I’m like, ‘Why isn’t it in Melbourne?’” Ramsay told Condé Nast Traveller of Marion. “Because the place is thriving. This place just lifted the neighbourhood, and it was exceptional.”
Then, Melbourne went mad for lobster rolls. You know the ones. Medallions of lobster tail coated in creamy kewpie mayo served on buttery brioche. It quickly became a cult favourite that outlasted its first home, Golden Fields in St Kilda, before appearing at Asian-inspired Supernormal. McConnell had returned to the flavours he encountered over years in China and travels through Japan.
Specialty butcher and wine store Meatsmith was the first push into retail, opened with butcher Troy Wheeler, a friend before the pair went into business. But this wasn’t just any old butchery. Bespoke fridges were designed to mimic jewellery store cabinets and its Smith Street, Fitzroy, home settled on only as it’s close to a greengrocer, supermarket and bakery. It also supplies the group’s restaurants.
Glamorous Gimlet’s delayed debut finally came in July 2020. “What it did, in some ways, was restore confidence and brought life back to the city,” Chamber of Commerce chief executive Sally Curtain said.
The same year, while keeping plates spinning at the top end of town, trendy grocery-bakery store Morning Market opened months after beginning as a lockdown-era pop-up at Marion. Moody cocktail bar Apollo Inn opened in 2023, still with queues to get in most days.
Then something unexpected – a shift not to the harbourside city, but to the Sunshine state with Supernormal Brisbane and Bar Miette opening in July 2024.
A cradle of excellence
Former Trader House staffers liken their time in the business to a restaurant bootcamp due to the intensity and high level of training. While the Builders Arms crew is a more tight-knit group, the work environment is more formal and competitive at the fine diners. No matter which business, though, Trader House is known to build perfectionists. The company name on a CV opens doors and secures interviews across Australia.
In 2022, Gimlet was awarded 84th best restaurant globally in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ extended list, one of just a handful of local eateries to get the nod. It brought international attention. Visit Victoria chief executive Brendan McClements said tourists actively seek out McConnell’s venues as must-do experiences when they come to Melbourne.
“Melbourne’s reputation as a global dining destination is built on world‑class talent and a dining culture that consistently draws food‑motivated travellers to the city,” he said. “Andrew McConnell’s Trader House restaurants have played a defining role in cementing that reputation.”
It also upped the stakes – and pressure – for those working there. Several former Gimlet staff, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the global ranking changed the tone. They detailed a shift in culture and frustrations of working at a customer-first organisation.
Several recounted abrupt endings after wonderful years, with some leaving hospitality altogether but others still in the industry. None was willing to go on the record. At the same time, others in similar roles describe their time at Trader House as one of the most rewarding professional experiences of their lives. They wouldn’t hesitate taking another interview or have hired fellow Trader House alumni based on knowing they are among the very best in the business. They also appear copiously in the list of Good Food Guide awards.
Builders Arms co-owner Anthony Hammond said McConnell doesn’t dig his heels in, he sees when something isn’t working and quickly changes direction. “[It] shows a deep sense of – how do I put this – way of thinking that you are not the be-all and end-all,” Hammond said. “It’s unusual among a lot of business people.” He said McConnell has a deep trust in senior management and doesn’t badmouth staff who strike it out on their own.
Trader House development chef John Paul Twomey left for Carlton Wine Room then Baker Bleu before returning. “There’s not a lot of chefs that have the fashion and the design side, you can see that in all these restaurants,” Twomey said.
Take the chefs who drop everything to work there and are inspired by the founder’s propensity to jump at opportunities, such as chef Raphael Exton-Pery, who took a pay cut and stepped back in his career just to work at Gimlet.
He rejects the limelight, but, hey … it’s Stanley Tucci
Even at the height of the MasterChef phenomenon, McConnell appeared only once. He is also largely quiet during an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and seldom pops up on food shows.
But he wasn’t always so camera shy. More than a decade ago, McConnell permitted Vice’s Munchies to film a night out with mates which ended with the celebrated chef deep-frying cheese at Cumulus. It’s known he suffered a painful skateboard injury requiring surgery, and during the pandemic he detailed the importance of exercise for his mental health, also giving a shoutout to his dermal therapist.
Ben Shewry, who worked for and with McConnell before establishing award-winning eatery Attica, famously wrote a book, Uses for Obsession, in which he was critical of journalists who turn their hand to writing about restaurants. If McConnell holds similar views, he does not make it widely known.
However, while Shewry built a local following on social media channels as he eschews the mainstream, McConnell has largely maintained a low profile. His last public Instagram post was more than a year ago, and despite his restaurants catering to the rich and very famous, discretion is maintained at all costs. He has posted only one celebrity photo. It is with actor and writer Stanley Tucci, known in gastronomic circles for his travel food program Searching for Italy. It was taken at an industry event, outside of his restaurants.
A ‘genre-defining’ presence in Melbourne: Age reviewer
In 2025, after years working as an anonymous reviewer, The Age’s chief restaurant critic Besha Rodell revealed herself. Hitherto anonymous everywhere – except Trader House. Since about 2021, her photo was plastered onto the walls of its offices.
Rodell was well aware after a staffer came up and told her at a private gathering. A third party had given her name to the restaurant before she visited Cutler as part of a group dinner and someone took a photo of her surreptitiously, she explained.
“There is no kind of anonymity that is perfect and I’m actually really proud that they were the only people who had a photo of me, Trader House was,” Rodell said.
“For a really long time Chris Lucas thought he had a photo of me, but it was my sister, and she got great, great service.”
Rodell has never written a bad review of a McConnell restaurant. She describes him as a rare chef who engages with criticism thoughtfully and while some of his contemporaries have seen their empires crumble underneath them, McConnell’s success is notable for his longevity.
All eyes in this food-obsessed town are now on Côte Basque, still under construction.
“It’s super highly anticipated, it is almost entirely because of his name,” Rodell explained.
“He has not opened a restaurant in Melbourne that hasn’t just been kind of genre-defining for that era ever, at least not in my memory of covering Melbourne restaurants.”
Coincidence or reconnaissance? My dinner at Gimlet
Behind the textured glass of Gimlet’s illuminated centre bar, dozens of workers carefully navigate around each other preparing and carrying its celebrated dishes. Open kitchens are a Trader House signature, a carefully calculated look into the inner workings of the behemoth.
It was on full display when I dined there recently, in a quiet, spacious booth deep in the dining room that offered a glimpse of both sides of the frosted partition. (I paid my own way, for the record.)
The week earlier, I called the restaurant on my personal phone and took a shot at the unlikely – a short-notice dinner reservation for the coveted 6pm slot. I left my name on a waitlist and was told to try again closer to the time.
But the very next day, I received a call on my work phone. It was confirmed. As my partner and I dined on John Dory and Gippsland beef, I wondered whether the hosts’ smiles were just a little brighter than usual.
A waiter made a passing reference to his football team’s ground, he also happened to have the same favourite post-dinner drink as us. Twice I heard just how well lunch went.
But it was just a coincidence, right?
Either way, it didn’t really matter. It lived up to the definition of hospitality. Every element hit every note. I’ve already booked an encore.
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