From a top spot in South Yarra to the fresh culinary fields of Footscray
When Sean Donovan told colleagues he was resigning as executive chef at the Botanical to run a kitchen in a nondescript pub in Melbourne’s west, they responded with support - and concern. South Yarra institution ‘The Bot’ had just been sold to a large hotel investment group and the new owners wanted Donovan to stay. “For me, if I’d stayed on, there would have been great opportunities . . . without the risk,” he says. But Donovan had his sights set on transforming the Station Hotel, in Napier Street, Footscray, into his own gastro pub and was ready to trade in his view of one of Melbourne’s most adored gardens to do so. Some friends asked him if it was the right time, the right place, the right area. “Having not seen where we were, people have this perception of Footscray as being at the end of the earth, not five kilometres from the city, which it is,” he says. The move got Melbourne foodies talking. Part of the reason Donovan, 36, says he became co-owner of the pub with his brother-in-law, Greg Fee, was that he had grown too comfortable at the Botanical, a two-hat restaurant. Other reasons included timing and coincidence. The Age, April 26.
