Longrain's Sam Christie: Running restaurants is in my blood

How does a Thai-loving Greek man come to not only open a Japanese restaurant in Potts Point but a Greek restaurant in Japan? There's some poetry to that, surely.

If you'd asked Sam Christie (the restaurateur behind Sydney's Longrain, Apollo and Cho Cho San) if, when he was working at Tetsuya's almost 20 years ago, he ever expected to one day be running a restaurant that goes through 100 kilograms of cheese a week, he'd probably say yes. But still, he says, "that's a lot of cheese."

He's always been an ideas man – sometimes a little too ahead of his time. In the early '90s, fresh from a trip to Mexico, he came back to Sydney wanting to open a Mexican restaurant ("we had so many of the same ingredients on hand already – the limes, the chilli, the coriander, the fresh seafood") but none of his chef friends were interested.

It was about the same time, actually, that Christie met Martin Boetz, working at the now defunct Zigolini's in Double Bay. Fast forward a few years to 1999 and the two were opening Longrain together, on Commonwealth Street, then an unloved patch of Surry Hills. "It was actually never going to be Thai to start out with," says Christie. "But then Marty went to work with David Thompson at Sailors Thai."

The rest wrote itself.

Longrain was one of the first Sydney venues with a drink or dine licence – with its fruity stick drinks in the adjoining bar, DJ in the corner and communal dining tables, it was extremely hip. It was a time when Oxford Street was a vibrant late-night hub, and mobile phones were only just becoming commonplace. In fact, Christie and the team debated whether they should ban them in the restaurant.

"You're out to dinner, y'know, we're looking after you and you're having a chat. And then we realised that people were waiting on friends to arrive. That didn't used to happen. It'd be like 'Meet you at Longrain at 7pm'. And then you'd just show. Because you wouldn't get a better offer."

But then, Oxford Street started to die. The lockout laws deeply affected the strip, which today is unrecognisable from the street that once wore more glitter, sequins and feathers combined than the entire cast of RuPaul's Drag Race. Every weekend was a world-famous all-night dance party.

"I think that the death of Oxford Street and the nightclubbing scene is probably the reason this pocket of the restaurant scene is constantly changing. I mean, if someone said to you, 'Where do you go out dancing?' – and we get that from customers all the time – you used to be able to say, oh go up to Oxford Street' but now, I don't know."

Christie is a proud local. "I'm as Sydney as they come. I grew up surfing in Bondi, I went to Sydney Boys High. I've had a business in Surry Hills for 18 years. Sydney's my life. And I'm really passionate about my city and a little bit frustrated and angry about the culture at the moment. The food and booze side of things is awesome, but the nightlife and the rules and regulations around it are f---ing bullshit."

The thing is, though, that lockout laws, as terrible as they are for Sydney's nightlife, are good for restaurants.

"This end of town is kind of constantly changing. Now there's Nomad, Chin Chin, the Ester guys are going in … they add to a vibrancy that's kind of there but isn't fully stitched together and integrated. Maybe on Friday and Saturday nights, but not the rest of the time."

On Chin Chin, Christie is tight-lipped about Melbourne restaurateur Chris Lucas opening his popular Flinders Lane mod-Asian just a few doors down from Longrain in the Griffiths Tea building. "Look, it's a beautiful building and the fact that he could afford to buy an entire floor – I mean, I would too, if I could afford it. I think it was a ballsy move – it'll be interesting to see how it plays out."

But having done the reverse and opened Longrain in Melbourne almost 13 years ago, he understands the struggle to open anything interstate. Anyway, Christie has bigger fish to fry. He and business partner Jonathan Barthelmess opened a second branch of their successful Greek restaurant Apollo mid-2017. In Ginza.

"We were at a point here where we were like 'What's next?' And if you're on your game you want to expand. You want to challenge yourself and you want to give people what you create. And that's where the satisfaction lies."

The Apollo is now part of Transit – a Japanese group that also includes inner-east darlings Bills and Fratelli Paradiso. Interestingly, it's the same organisation that is also in conversation with the Rootstock team about bringing the wine festival to Tokyo next year.

"I think our partners can see the insularity of Japan and the limitations there," he says. Though getting their Japanese staff to adapt to the more casual, breezy Sydney attitude to service has been a little more challenging.

"That's the tricky thing. To bring our friendly, knowledgeable and dynamic model is hard for them," says Christie.

"It's a different culture. But they want and need that. That's the part of Japan looking at the rest of the world and saying, 'Hang on, we can have more'. And they've done that through every industry and art form. You look at anything from wetsuit design to pop art. They do it all and they do it better than anyone else."

Travelling the world creating restaurants is certainly a far cry from the travelling he did as a teenager, staying in flophouses and fleapits, always up for trouble (he was once followed by a leper in New Delhi who rubbed his bare arm with a bandaged stump. "Obviously, I knew you couldn't catch leprosy like that but it's still pretty confronting as a 19-year-old, getting rubbed by a leper.")

And the adrenaline of working in restaurants is in Christie's blood. He doesn't know how to do anything but run restaurants and he doesn't want to.

"We're Australian. We work to live. That's who we are. And this industry … if you flog yourself you're just going to burn out. I've been working in restaurants since I was 15. I've got loads of passions but I don't know how to do anything else. I'd love to make wine or own an art gallery but really, at the end of the day, it's restaurants."

Quickfire corner

Favourite music to cook to: Funk. James Brown's band, without James Brown.

After-midnight snack: Cheese and sesame Vita-Weats.

Weapon of choice: Jeez, I love a tray. When they came out with those black rubber trays, that was a happy time.

Formative food writing: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.

Non-cooking ninja skill: I'm actually a bit of a gardener. When I was a kid, they'd call me Sam the Digger.