THE MERLO FAMILY
For many people in Queensland, the Merlo name has become synonymous with coffee. Twenty-eight years after founding his Brisbane-based café and wholesaling business, Dean Merlo’s Merlo Coffee remains independently owned, with 16 stores and 10 torrefazione (roasteries), supplying more than 1500 cafés and restaurants nationally.
But the family’s steadily expanding coffee empire is just the latest instalment. The Merlo family legacy stretches back to the 1950s, and the arrival of Luigi Merlo from Italy. It’s a history encompassing everything from hand-built guesthouses and groundbreaking espresso bars, to a Brisbane fine-diner which ended up playing host to everyone, from prime ministers to Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II.
Luigi Merlo was one of tens of thousands of Italian migrants who came to Australia in the grim aftermath of World War II. In 1950, he gambled everything to start a new life on the other side of the world, saying goodbye to his wife and family, and his small trattoria in Tirano near the Swiss-Italian border, setting out for a job cutting sugarcane in Queensland.
The contrast between Mackay and Tirano would have been stark. Yet, by the following year, Luigi Merlo was settled enough to send for Maria and their sons, Gino, Luciano and Gian Luigi.
A decade later, Luigi Merlo’s eldest son, Gino, would be frothing cappuccino, presiding over the bustling basement café Milano on Brisbane’s Queen Street – a stepping stone to his ownership of Milano, one of the state’s first contemporary silver-service restaurants.
The family’s push into hospitality was a family affair. Gino’s brothers, Luciano and Gian, were on the payroll at both eateries, before Luciano later opened his own inner-city trattoria, Merlo’s.
Luigi Merlo’s grandson (and Gino’s son), Dean Merlo, fought hard to achieve his wins in the coffee world, but he applauds his forebears as truly inspirational grafters.
“I met a man who lived opposite them in Mackay who couldn’t believe how hard my family worked,” he says. “Within a year, they’d built a guesthouse. My grandfather would get up at 3am and they’d start cutting at 4.30am or 5am and be finished by lunchtime. Then, they’d come home and start building. My grandmother would make the bricks in the morning and they’d lay them in the afternoon.”
In the cane off-season, Gino worked at the luxury Hayman Island resort, an experience that opened his eyes to the finer side of food and beverage, sparking his hospitality ambitions.
By 1958, Gino had married and headed for Brisbane. His parents soon followed, buying a boarding house in inner-city West End. And so the scene was set.
Gino’s café Milano on Brisbane’s main shopping thoroughfare not only had novel treats like handmade gelato and a Carpigiani ice-cream maker, it housed the state’s first La San Marco espresso machine, introducing many to coffee, Italian-style. “We believe it was the first espresso machine in Queensland,” says Dean. “They had to fly a technician up from Sydney to service it.”
The café menu was simple but tasty – toasted sandwiches, soups, scaloppini. A confection called “a mozzarella” was a big hit. It looked familiar enough to be safe, but featured two ingredients many Brisbanites had not yet encountered – rich Italian ragù and mozzarella.
“It was a thick piece of bread covered with Bolognese sauce and a slice of mozzarella over the top, heated in an oven,” says Dean. “It was bloody delicious. We never actually said it was Bolognese. People would just taste it and they’d really love it.”
In 1969, the café’s landlords took back the lease, which spurred Gino to think even bigger.
Stylish Milano launched in 1970 on the first floor of 78 Queen Street. It was designed by Robin Gibson, the celebrated Brisbane architect behind projects such as the Queensland
Art Gallery and Queensland Cultural Centre at South Bank.
With a 37,000-bottle wine cellar, a chef imported from Germany, and glamorous silver-service, Milano was unique, particularly for the calibre of its floor staff.
“These were professionals – career waiters who could speak five languages, carry eight plates and triple their wages with tips every week,” says Dean. The food was rich and European, featuring French and Italian influences. The menu rarely changed, offering lobster mornay, steak au poivre, tournedos Rossini and the like. Petits fours came with a cloud of dry ice.
Gino’s friendship with wine guru Len
Evans and his membership of Evans’ legendary Single Bottle Club meant Milano became a notable venue for wine and tastings, another point of difference for a Queensland restaurant.
“You couldn’t believe the wine – at one lunch they did a vertical Château d’Yquem tasting across 12 years,” recalls Dean, who worked the floor after school and while studying for his law degree.
At 50, Gino retired. It was expected Dean would take over Milano, but instead the restaurant was sold in 1985 and closed a few years later. When Dean returned to Brisbane in 1992 after travels in the US and Europe, he opened Bar Merlo at 344 Queen Street – not far from where his dad had first opened café Milano.
“It was exactly the right thing, at the right time, in the right location,” says Dean. “And really, it’s never taken a backward step.” You can’t help thinking his grandfather would have approved.
Merlo Coffee is sold at multiple locations, merlo.com.au
“I met a man in Mackay who couldn’t believe how hard they worked. Within a year they’d built a guesthouse.”