At home with design maven Pascale Gomes-McNabb.
Pascale Gomes-McNabb is known for designing polished and playful restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney, and she brings the same verve to at-home entertaining.
SWEET OR SAVOURY I’ll make an apple crumble or clafoutis, or pick up a chocolate
kugelhopf from Monarch Cakes in [Melbourne’s] Acland Street. I also love serving a huge slab of hazelnut chocolate, and cheeses with brioche, quince paste and Dr Karg crispbread.
DIVINE DIGESTIFS Cocktails, champagne or both. I like Taittinger, Ruinart and Pol Roger. We tend to make margaritas and negronis the most.
TABLETOP CHOICES My dining table is charred black timber. It’s a beautiful foil for white linen and colourful elements. I have a new range of Stelton dinnerware, Mark Douglass glasses, metal vessels, cut-glass bowls and antique Japanese things. It’s always all jumbled together, though I like to think I have curated it.
CUTTING EDGE I have a few stainless-steel cutlery sets, including Georg Jensen, Jean Nouvel and Arne Jacobsen flatware, as well as Antonio Citterio tableware I used in the first restaurant I opened.
DÉCOR FLOURISHES I aim for an array of objects and artworks, new and old. A beautiful 19th-century copper fluted jelly mould next to a bright-red Anne-Marie May perspex sculpture. In terms of flowers, I like red orchids with pink lilies.
JEWEL TONES I wear a lot of sculptural rings by Adrian Lewis, Ann Demeulemeester and Zaha Hadid. A favourite shop in Melbourne is Gallery Funaki.
PARTY TIME It depends on the crowd, and how people synchronise, but I like to have a bit of fun. Playing dress-ups, swapping clothes and dancing might happen after dinner.