CAFÉ SOCIETY
The story of Hardware Société goes something like this…
Will and Di Keser realise that what people want from Hardware Société is brunch. All day. This is when some of the dishes that are the foundation for the café’s popularity come into being.
Melbourne is a town where people have already taken to the idea of breakfast, but what Di and Will do at Hardware Société is something new. There’s eggs Benedict, but they turn it into lobster Benedict, which comes with a citrus hollandaise foam, soft herbs and a 64-degree egg. They serve scrambled eggs with a double-smoked bacon slab, peas and Gruyère. Fried brioche becomes a signature, perhaps served with Earl Grey-poached pears and chocolate ganache. It’s not like any other brunch menu in town.
“Our food is hearty, rich and luxurious,” says chef Aaron Taylor. “We’ve never done smashed avo. We don’t do eggs on toast. Why would you line up for 40 minutes for eggs on toast? Di and Will decided, this is what we love and this is what we want to share. They’re unapologetic about it.”
Then began a love affair with Paris
“We were here one summer and when we got back to Melbourne it was July, winter, grey, depressing,” says Di. “I said to Will: ‘Why don’t we open a café in Paris?’ Will was like, ‘Yeah, whatever’, thinking I was just daydreaming. I started looking at shops online and I came across the site on Rue Lamarck in Montmartre. It seemed
