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But if all this sounds like it’s leading towards one of those shrines to gastronomy where diners are held captive for hours by a tasting menu, each successive tiny dish taking longer to describe than it does to eat, you can relax. That’s not what this restaurant is about. Or, not what these restaurants – plural – are about.
Come winter, when Society opens, you’ll step out of the lift and be greeted by a bar: a good sign. Pause here for a moment before proceeding to the main event or settle in and make this the main event, grazing on crab toasts, caviar, potato tarts and oysters from the bar menu.
Turn right and slide into a booth of buttery leather at the Lillian Terrace, where dishes lean European – but not as you know it: a fine crêpe enfolding tiny whitebait, with garlic oil and smoked paprika, perhaps.
Turn left for Society’s principal attraction, a grand corner dining room beneath three vast Mark Douglass chandeliers. For Benn and Wild, whose focus for the past 20 years has been dégustation menus, switching to à la carte service has been refreshing. You want lobster? Try it with eggwhite rice and pickles or somen noodles and shellfish oil. Like duck? You might like it even more slow-roasted and glazed with a vinegar Benn makes with wild strawberries.
For a different experience entirely, they’re also opening a two-level 250-seater next-door. Yakimono will pay tribute to Tokyo-style bar dining – beer on tap, small bites, charcoal grills – with a Martin Benn twist. It could be something as familiar as a hand-roll or as singular as a morsel of smoked chicken liver parfait sandwich.
Society, says Lucas, is about delivering food and drink with fine-dining production values but doing away with the less fun parts. “And hey,” adds Benn, “if you really want me to put together a 10-course menu, I can do that for you. We’re here to say yes.”
80 Collins Street, Melbourne; societyrestaurant.com