Life after Vlado

MELBOURNE WAS HOSTING the Olympic Games the year that the city's future baron of beef, Vlado Gregurek, escaped from communist-controlled Croatia and fled to Paris. Two years later, in 1958, following instructions in a secret letter sewn into a courier's coat, his wife, Nevenka, managed to join him, leaving their infant son, Michael, behind as guarantee she would return. She didn't - and it was only after the couple migrated to Australia that they were able to extract their child, incurring such wrath from the comrades that the family home of Vlado's parents was given to an army officer.

It is now 54 years later and we are sitting in a back room of Vlado's, the famous steakhouse that Gregurek founded in Bridge Road, Richmond. Michael is a barrister and a father of three. Nevenka, whose name was ''Australianised'' to Nina after her arrival, is a proud but grieving widow. Her beloved Vlado, life partner of almost 64 years, died of cancer in May at age 81, leaving a very large question mark hanging over the Melbourne food scene: what will happen to the city's longest-running single-ownership restaurant, a beacon for carnivores throughout Australia?

Now we have an answer. ''This is Vlado's baby," Nina says. ''We are keeping it as a family business, I just want to work and keep his spirit going. Everything the same. Staff the same, menu the same.'' Yes, even those same strawberry pancake desserts that have been part of this extraordinary Melbourne story from the beginning, a dish devised by Vlado's late mother, Emilija.

These glad tidings will certainly ease the minds of the many Vlado's regulars who are probably still unaware that the same question mark hung over the business just six years ago. That was when the restaurateur confided to long-time patron Peter Rowland, the caterer, that he was feeling increasingly tired. So much grilling over so many mallee-root fires for so many years - was it time to retire? Rowland advised the restaurateur to "back your health" and keep going. So Vlado stayed the course, faltering only early this year when he grew too weary to work at night.

''We thought it was a heart problem,'' Nina says. ''Then we found out it was lung cancer and a brain tumour. I can't talk about it because I start to cry.''

Vlado, in the manner of a pop star, was recognisable by a single name. He was such a culinary icon that former treasurer Peter Costello concluded a travel essay from the Gregureks' homeland two years ago with the words: "I intend to go home to eat a steak at Vlado's, the best steakhouse in Australia."

Nina was 15 when she first met Vlado in Zagreb. "He was a junior comedian," she says. "I was still at school. Later, when we got engaged, we moved in with his parents, Mihajlo and Emilija. My husband was then working as a journalist and his first trip out of the country was to New York to interview a sculptor. The regime was not happy with him. Even though he said he preferred Croatia to California, Vlado told people he loved the freedom of America. That counted against him and we were living in fear at that time. He got a visa to Prague but went somehow to Paris, where one of his school friends helped him."

Vlado met a travelling Croatian band called Tamburitza and persuaded one of the musicians to take a letter to his mother in Zagreb, sewn inside his coat. It told Nina to go to the authorities and ask permission to travel to Paris, pretending she was chasing an errant husband to bring him home. Nina had to leave Michael with Vlado's parents as surety. The unaccustomed beauty and freedom of Paris entranced Nina but when Vlado explained that they would not return to Croatia she was torn. "Would I stay or go?" she says. "How could I live without my son? Straight away we started working on the papers for Michael at the embassies but the communists said we were 'two adventurers' and not good for the child."

The Gregureks took advice and applied to migrate to Australia, believing there was more chance of getting their son if they were settled and employed. "My husband chose Australia," Nina says, "because it was the last frontier. In our life then, big brother was watching you. If we wanted to say something to each other, we had to whisper.

''Even parents were scared to say something in front of the children because the children were brainwashed to go and dob you in. You even had to be careful what you wore because people would ask where you got it. We thought that could never happen here."

After arriving in Melbourne in 1959, Nina was employed as a model. Vlado worked as a waiter at a cafe called Ceros and did some part-time acting, starring in one episode of the Channel Nine TV series Hunter as a Greek named Patopolous. In 1961, Vlado's parents were permitted to bring Michael to Australia but they forfeited their home. They stayed more than four years, by which time Vlado had established a restaurant in Smith Street, Fitzroy, called Gregory's Charcoal Grill. He sold it and gave enough money to his parents to buy a new home when they returned to Croatia. "Smith Street had a bad reputation then,'' Nina says. "It was because of all the continental shops. It was called a 'wogs' town'. When I was modelling, a newspaper guy came to take pictures and asked me to try to look sexy. Afterwards he asked where I lived. I said 'Smith Street, Fitzroy.' He said: 'Oooh, we'd better say Nina of Melbourne.' I always remember that."

Vlado set up his steakhouse in Bridge Road in 1964, leasing for many years until buying the building in the '90s. It was Emilija, trained in a Prague finishing school before the war, who contributed the original recipes for coleslaw salad and the strawberry dessert that Vlado's serves to this day.

Michael says: "She was a fabulous chef. You will now find strawberry pancakes in just about every steakhouse in Australia but we were the first." Indeed, Nina says Vlado inherited his mother's talent in the kitchen - while Michael "inherited my talent for staying out of the kitchen".

In 2004, after 40 years at this location, Vlado held a "40 years and no change" dinner, underlining the unswerving policy that his widow plans to continue. Over the years, Vlado won a reputation for serving steaks that were unsurpassed in Australia, grilled on a hot plate with just a smear of fat . "He was a perfectionist," Michael says, which raises the thorny question: Who will follow him?

Michael says there are now two chefs drilled by Vlado in the art of cooking meat: Ivan Glavas, Nina's godson, who has been at the restaurant for 30 years and Elio Valkovic, who has worked there for 10 years. Waiters Michael and Doug together chalk up 50 years and Nina's brother-in-law Stevie, who oversees meat preparation, 20 years. Stevie's son Richard also works there sometimes.

"After me," Nina says, ''it will be Michael and, after him, his son and two daughters. We want to promote the Vlado spirit."

Five decades of meat: Menu since 1964

First course Home-made sausages.

Second course Tasting plate of steak, liver, pork, hamburger.

Third course Choice of eye fillet, porterhouse or rump steak.

Fourth course Strawberry pancakes.

Set price $93

The team:

Ivan Glavas, manager/head chef. His children are godchildren to Nina and Vlado. Has been at Vlado's for almost 30 years. His son Ilija has worked there for 15 years.

Elio Valkovic, assistant chef. Has been with Vlado's for 10 years.

Sveto ''Stevie'' Sucevic, Nina's brother-in-law, prepares meat and fire. Has worked at Vlado's for more than 20 years.

Doug Petrovic, waiter, Nina's nephew, 20 years.

Michael Brown, waiter, 30 years.