Acland St StKilda - Melbourne's best cake and coffee street? the world's best?

I have happily read the book Acland Street: The Grand Lady of St Kilda, written by Dr Judith Buck­rich (Nov 2017). It ex­plores the history of architecture on Acland St, starting from the 1850s and early settlement, through swamps, race courses, development of the Acland St village, Vict­orian prosperity and boarding house poverty.

Buckrich searched the archives and inter­viewed famous peop­le from the Melbourne Jewish community who had a connection to Acland St. She recognised that the street was one of Melbourne's most important because it mirrored so much of the social change that occurred in Australian cities over 175 years. It encapsulated the social and cultural history of the city in a unique way, having been part of Melbourne’s entertainment scene for decades, as well as home to the wealthiest and poorest of its citizens.

The Melbourne suburb of St Kilda was named after Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet (1787–1871) of Killerton Manor in Devon, a British politician and land owner. He owned the cruiser yacht Lady of St Kilda from 1834-40, after which the area was named during one of the ship's visits to Melbourne in 1842. His wife Lady Lydia Hoare was the first English lady to set foot in St Kilda.

This land was once shrubland, lagoons and dunes. For its traditional owners, the Kulin Nation, the St Kilda Triangle was part of an area called Euroe Yroke. After Europ­ean settlement, St Kilda became a bustling seaside suburb, and the Triangle site became a recreat­ional space for decades.

Acland St StKilda 2015.

Shops and cafes on either side, cars and trams down the centre

Acland St StKilda 2017
Cars can no longer drive through. Trams must turn around at the end of the street.

St Kilda became a municip­al­ity in 1857, and in the same year a railwayline was built connecting it to Melbourne’s city cen­t­re. Regular train services resulted in increased visitors to St Kilda’s sea baths, jetty prom­en­ade, cricket, bowling clubs and the St Kilda Cup. By the mid-1860s, St Kilda had 15 residential hotels, including the famous George Hotel.

During the 1880s land boom, it became a densely pop­ulated dis­t­rict of large stone mansions and palatial hotels, mostly along the broad Fitzroy, Grey and Acland streets. From the 1890s, many mansions became boarding houses and brothels.
After WW1, the suburb was a magnet for Eur­op­ean migr­ants and singles from less acc­eptable sub-cul­tures. There were artists, musicians, writ­ers, the LGB com­m­unity and anyone who was poor but wanted the joys of seaside life. This suburb of con­trasts was, and is, impossible to pin down economically and socially.

After the opening of the cable tramway in 1891, the St Kilda Foreshore Committee was formed by the government to make their area into a Mediterranean seaside resort. Carlo Catani was contracted to prepare a masterplan for St Kilda’s beaut­ification in 1906. Catani’s famous leisure precinct along the bay, as far as Point Ormond, included notable features like the Sea Baths (1910), Luna Park (1912), Palais de Danse I (1913), Palais de Danse II (1926) and Palais Theatre (1927).

European migrants and refugees were arriving by 1946, often taken there straight off the boat - they gave the street a totally cosmopolitan flav­our! And Jews like my par­ents, who had been living in Carlton before the war, started to migrate south to St Kilda, Elwood and Caulfield. They too frequent­ed the cafés, delicatessens and cake shops in Acland St.

Sund­ays mornings was standing-room only as Jewish men gathered on the street to sort out the politics of the day, eat latkes at Café Scheherazade, buy kugelhopf from Monarch and the latest novels from the Balberyszski Bookshop.  Monarch opened in 1934 and was the first of the cake shops here. Two doors away was Scheherazade Coffee Lounge, founded in 1958 by Avram and Masha Zeleznikow who had migrated from Par­is a few years ear­lier. Regulars ordered traditional fare like gefilte fish, chopped chicken liver, potato latkes and kreplach.

Modern visitors to the continental cake shops in Acland St find reminders of a dwindling European-Jewish ambience; alas (for me) the cul­tural shift has led to the departure of small, but important businesses. Today Balberszki book sellers, Wielunski milk bar, Berioska, Eilat and Carmel restaurants, the Budapest delicat­essen, Eat-More Poultry are gone, while Chinese businesses such as Fairy Stork restaurant are going too. The cake shops that were bastions of yesteryear, are now part of a gradual shift from “remnant European” to a "more international beachside" culture.

Acland St cake shops,

inside and outside tables

More recently the Palais de Danse III opened on the Triangle site, and was later renamed Palace Entertainment Cen­tre. Des­troyed by fire in 2007, a masterplan was later approv­ed by Council incorporating repairs to the Palais Theatre and a redevelopment of the Triangle site. Trad­ers fear that Acland St will lose its distinctiveness. Nonetheless it is still a colourful street adorned with art on the footpath and an ass­ort­ment of talented street performers. In Aug 2014, the Coun­cil and the community delivered a project for the St Kilda Triang­le site.

In the book, Acland St's cake shops provided a link to St Kilda's European heritage, and to my childhood. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, my parents and their friends spent Sun­day afternoons eating cheesecake and sour cream in East Euro­pean restaurants, especially Scheherazade. The best year was 1956 when my father was integrally involved in the Melbourne Olympic Games. He arranged outings for the homesick Is­raeli team (all 3 athletes and some older managers) in Acland St.

Happily the fab­ul­ous Esplanade Market is still open every Sunday. There's also live enter­tain­ment, good food and an attractive atmosphere at famous local bar/restaurant, the Vine­yard. And Luna Park of course.