Dee Bee's

t:: (02) 9327 6696
27 Knox , DOUBLE BAY, NSW

Review

Dee Bee's is arguably home to the nicest eggs benedict and cappuccinos in Sydney - Greg Tingle, Media Man Australia


Articles

Paradise lost, by Danielle Teutsch - 29th November 2004
(Credit: The Sun-Herald)

In its heyday, Double Bay was the must-be-seen-there destination for the city's rich and famous. And although money still talks, Danielle Teutsch discovers a suburb in desperate need of a makeover.

Earlier this month, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy fashionisto Carson Kressley dropped into Australia for a promotional visit. On his Sydney itinerary were the W Hotel, top restaurants, sailing on the harbour, and visits to Paddington and Bondi Beach. And what about Double Bay, I asked his publicist Max Markson. "Oh yes, definitely, we'll be driving through Double Bay," he said. But would they be stopping? "Well . . . no."

Not stopping at Double Bay! There was a time when the suburb would have been the alpha to omega of Sydney's cool, a must-see, not merely a drive-through destination. It was where all the overseas celebrities stayed, where everyone shopped, and the only place to do coffee on a Saturday morning. If Sydney's collective wealth and power were displayed on a dartboard, Double Bay would have been the bullseye.

But for the past year, there has been nothing but doomsday predictions about the suburb and its retail malaise. People blame high rents, parking meters and Westfield Bondi Junction for sucking the life from the pavements. At the same time, Sydney's celebrity set continues to buy up apartments in the city, on the beaches and at their new favourite place, Potts Point - everywhere but Double Bay.

Postcode 2028, it would seem, is at risk of sinking into obscurity, becoming nothing more than an outdated refuge of the gaudy rich, with its residents resembling gross caricatures from the soap Santa Barbara. RIP Double Bay? It is true that the suburb is not the epicentre it once was, but it is too soon to start writing an obituary, say those who know it intimately.

IN SYLVIA Rhodes's tiny lingerie store, tucked away next to the Stamford Plaza hotel, a statuesque blonde pops out of the changing room holding a La Perla chamois swimsuit. "I'll probably use it for the boat," the woman says in a drawling voice. "I loooove La Perla. I've got several of their swimsuits already." As the blonde whips out her credit card, Rhodes speaks in hushed tones of visiting celebrities and sheiks buying thousands of dollars of underwear, but refuses to name names. "We still get the who's who here. They don't go to Bondi Junction," she says, wrinkling her nose. "Recently, a lady rang me and ordered $4000 worth of La Perla lingerie. Over the phone. This is how Double Bay is. This is how it operates."

Hang around Knox Street long enough and the high-end freak show unfolds. Trout-lipped ladies with big sunglasses and big hair sit and drink coffee, looking like overdecorated cupcakes. There are young Paris Hilton look-alikes, with itsy-bitsy white skirts, heels and hair ironed dead straight.

There are the 40-something WASP-y blondes in black pants, pumps and crisp shirts with the collar turned up. Even on a hot spring day they are so icily immaculate they seem to have their own internal cooling systems. Then there are the grand old dames, with their Chanel suits, couture handbags and helmet-like blow-dries. They are fabulous and terrifying at the same time.

And it so continues - air kissing, yellow Boxters with P-plates and a hundred other cliches of wealth.

Unlike the North Shore, Double Bay is not just rich, it's also a scene. Double Bay first started to swing in the 1960s. It was one of the first places to feature ethnic food, chic boutiques and cafes with outdoor tables. And it was located in the centre of Sydney's axis of money, between Darling Point, Rose Bay and Vaucluse.

Maria Finlay, who opened her first fashion boutique in 1966, attributes the ascent of the suburb to the high-rises built at Darling Point. Suddenly, there was a ready market of well-travelled sophisticates who were desperate to find some European panache.

Despite the massive 60 per cent import duty on the clothes she brought here from Europe, the women of Double Bay couldn't buy enough from Finlay, then a charming young woman in her 20s who intuitively understood how to do business with the wealthy. "I mixed with them, and they became my friends," she says.

John Gyarfas, a Hungarian immigrant who owns Dee Bee's cafe, agrees Double Bay was unique in the Sydney of the 1960s. What started as a place for homesick Europeans very quickly became hot. "The Australians caught on very quickly to the ambience of Double Bay," he says. "Nobody else had the cafes and the boutiques. People came from everywhere. There was Barry Humphries, Bob Hawke, Sonia McMahon, Sir Peter Abels, society women with beautiful hats. It was the place to see and be seen."

IF Double Bay had a heyday, hairdresser Joh Bailey says it was in the 1970s and early 1980s, when he was an apprentice, styling the manes of the suburb's society doyennes. By the time he opened his own business there in 1985, the suburb was at its peak. The core of his business was what Bailey calls the "WASP-y blondes, the wives of the captains of industry, with their pared-down, elegant look".

"It was the era of the women who lunched," Bailey recalls. "They came in, in the morning, amazingly dressed. There were limousines waiting. They would come into the salon to get their ponytails done for tennis. Their ponytails!"

On the weekend, there would be Kerry Packer, Kate Fischer, Marcia Hines, Harry Triguboff and Rene Rivkin chomping on his cigar (before he migrated to Kings Cross) talking politics, doing deals and gossiping in the Knox Street cafes. Dee Bee's even had what was jokingly called the "millionaires' table", which was set aside for Packer and his coterie. The suburb seemed bulletproof.

Says jeweller Jan Logan of that era: "It was a bit of a scary time. Interest rates were at 17 per cent. Women wore huge earrings and big shoulder pads - the look was like Dallas. There was an atmosphere of unreality. It had to break." And break it did. By 1990 the mood had changed. Recession and the stockmarket crash made ostentatious wealth less palatable. At the same time, the rest of Sydney was evolving. Suddenly, Double Bay's once unique cafe nightlife could be found everywhere.

IT'S Tuesday lunchtime and the tables at John Liberiou's iconic cafe Twenty One are empty. During the 1980s, Twenty One, as famous for its schnitzel with creamed spinach as its celebrity clientele, was packed day and night. "We still have a few regulars. Paul Keating is faithful, he comes in for salads with his daughter. Kim Beazley comes - the old customers," Liberiou says. "But the younger people don't come to Double Bay. They go to Otto, the Icebergs, to Cockle Bay, to Woolloomooloo, to the city . . . they don't come here because there's nothing here.

"Tell me," he continues, "why would you want to come to Double Bay now? We have three businesses: coffee lounges, real estate and hairdressers, that's all."

Model Mink Sadowsky, wearing huge Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and a micro-mini, represents the "younger people" Liberiou refers to. She looks bemused when asked if she spends much time in Double Bay and is only here today because she has a casting at her agency, Elite. "It's not somewhere I would come and hang around," she says with a laugh.

A property change happened in the 1990s, too. Sydney's wealth, for so long locked up in the eastern suburbs and North Shore, started to diffuse. Though the suburb still comes in as the eighth-richest postcode area in NSW, many generation Xers and the dotcom millionaires have preferred to make their homes by the beach, in the CBD or in the inner-west. "The wealthy people of today aren't necessarily living in Double Bay," Bailey says.

Most of the more successful Double Bay retailers have opened stores in the city or Westfield Bondi Junction in recognition of the migrating dollar. But in Bailey's opinion, what really hurt Double Bay was the natural dying off of the Polish and Hungarian immigrants who had given the suburb its famous chutzpah.

"They were flashy and brash and fabulous," Bailey says of these women. "They led the charge with the manicures and the delis and all these very European lifestyles. They had fab Jaguars and Mercedes. There were fur coats at night and gold jewellery and loud voices."

IF SOME shops in Double Bay are in retail decline, Cosmopolitan shoes is not one of them. For years, society ladies and celebrities have come here to buy their red-carpet footwear. The shop manager shows me the most expensive pair in the store - Sergio Rossi stiletto sandals encrusted with Swarovski crystals with a price tag of $8000. "We don't display them, we only offer them to select customers," she says. Has she sold any? "Sure, we've sold a few. And they've picked up another few pairs at the same time," she offers nonchalantly.

Cosmopolitan shoes does business the Double Bay way - discreetly (closing the doors if a really big name walks in) and patiently. If a customer wants to spend hours trying on shoes, so be it. If they are hungry, an assistant will fetch sushi or coffee. If the client wants champagne, out comes a bottle.

Jeweller Jeff Einstein says it's not enough to simply complete a transaction. His customers want to be pampered. "They want you to say, 'Hello Mrs Smith, how was your daughter's wedding?'," he says.

All the retailers who are doing well realise the village atmosphere of Double Bay is its main selling point, along with its brand of personalised - some might say fawning - attention.

GETTING a full picture of the supposed retail crisis in Double Bay is difficult, although the local Chamber of Commerce is conducting a survey. It appears that prestige, high-end stores such as Belinda, Christensen Copenhagen, Jan Logan jewellery, Maria Finlay and Max Mara are doing fine, thank you. The mutterings are more about the chain stores and downmarket boutiques that have moved in - and often, just as quickly, moved out. Retailers believe the suburb is undergoing a massive shake-out, and that the short-term players simply won't survive.

But could it be that parts of Double Bay have become passe? That the suburb has become too complacent? Eastern suburbs resident Helen Sounis says she recently defected to Westfield Bondi Junction because she was tired of the expensive "tizzball" clothing in Double Bay. "A lot of it is old hat, and isn't realistically priced," she says. In one upmarket boutique, there are rhinestone jeans, double-breasted blazers and canary yellow skirts that would be at home in Kath Day's wardrobe if not for the hefty price tags. It seems the suburb can no longer get away with the old maxim "Double Bay, Double Pay" - there is simply too much competition around.

While hardly anyone in Double Bay wants to talk about a suburb in crisis, all admit it could do with some Carson Kressley "tjuzing". Parts of it look tired, such as the area around the Hunters Arcade. Councillor Valerie Corrigan famously commented that the back lane behind Woolworths looked "Third World". And to everyone's dismay, the cinema has gone, supposedly so it would not provide competition to Bondi Westfield.

Many believe the massive Kiaora Lands development, which provoked the fury of many residents, will give Double Bay the jump-start it needs. The $180-million project, on the south side of New South Head Road, includes a supermarket, retail arcade, public library and apartments with a village feel similar to the Italian Forum in Leichhardt. Bruce Solomon, whose company Solotel is jointly developing the site with Woolworths, says Double Bay's big advantage is that it's flat and easy to walk around. "As attractive as the mall in Bondi Junction is, it's still just a mall," he says.

But Woollahra councillor Fiona Sinclair King warns the development will not be the panacea everyone hopes for if the rest of the suburb remains unchanged. She has floated ideas such as a regular antique street fair, evening jazz clubs and an independent movie theatre to draw people in. She firmly believes that Double Bay has to start to sell itself - to the horror of some locals who don't believe they need to stoop to that. "People have walked up to me saying that I'm killing Double Bay," she sighs. "There are those who don't want it to change."

A GROUP of four 30-something women wearing summer dresses and full make-up piles into a cab, pink shopping bags bobbing on their arms. Their arms are Pilates-toned, their haunches are tight, their stilettos perilously high. It's lunchtime. They look like Carrie and her Sex And The City clique. The thing about Double Bay is that it's the only place in Sydney where the rich have always had licence to be rich, where they can overdress and flash their cash without being considered crass. There's almost a reassuring whisper in the air: "It's OK, there's no need to tuck your wealth away. You're among your own kind here."

So what if the herd of soap stars, newsreaders, filmmakers, chefs and other celebrity flotsam has moved on to brighter, hipper places. Does Double Bay care? Not really. Jan Logan is confident the suburb will ride through its temporary malaise. The money is still here, she says. "There's enough quiet wealth around here. It's not as obvious, but very real all the same." And real money always has the last laugh.

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