By Elizabeth Hart
WHEN Trevor Burr and John Chipperfield met at piano lessons nearly 40 years ago, they were a couple of country boys with musical talents and a desire to work in restaurants.
Both were dairy farmers, Trevor at Cora Lynn and John at Arawata near Korumburra.
By the time the rambling property known as Clover Cottage just east of Berwick village took their eye in the 1970s, their working partnership had already begun.
Trevor had been playing piano, teaching music, and waiting on tables at John’s Leongatha restaurant, an old Tudor mansion he had bought and turned into a function centre.
John, his wife Engelina, and Trevor bought Clover Cottage from the widow of Fred Tuckfield of Tuckfields Tea fame, Muriel, in 1974.
The eight-acre site consisted then of an old cottage built in 1891 and extensive gardens.
There began the story of one of Australia’s most successful and remarkable dining destinations, a landmark of Berwick township.
The three set about building a restaurant in Regency fashion. With rare panache they created plush décor and fine food and provided their guests with grand piano recitals compliments of Trevor.
Family and friends pitched in to help in the construction. The workers included John’s brother-in-law and cousin, Trevor’s uncle, and the barman at the time, Bob Hee.
From the start, the ambience and abundant smorgasbord ensured full-house bookings. In the first 60 days, 58 were full-house.
John and Engelina lived in the original cottage with their sons Dan and Tim and added a large garden room to the house, and Trevor lived upstairs above the main restaurant.
John says the home-spun character of the enterprise was one of the reasons they succeeded.
Still today John, Trevor, Engelina, and Tim, the head chef, hold fort.
Daniel, also a chef, looks after the group’s charter boats at Western Port Bay, including the 300-tonne Georgianna McHaffie, and the 14 farms they also own, including 1400 grazing acres at French Island and a farm at Heath Hill near Lang Lang.
All of them put in more than 100 hours a week, John reckons. Granddaughter Sophie, 18, has now joined the team as the third generation of family members to keep the restaurant rolling along.
“It is tiring at times, but satisfying,” John says.
Trevor has taken no more than two or three days off in 30 years, John says.
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