A fixture of Lygon Street since 1972, the singular butcher shop run by Leo Donati will close early next year, bringing to an end half a century of opera, debate and excellent Christmas hams.
This year will be the last time that Marcello Donati has to pull a marathon shift on his birthday, making sure Melburnians have their ham and porchetta for Christmas Day. Being born on December 24, the son of butcher Leo Donati in some ways drew the short straw.
But for the past 26 years, working alongside his father has also given him a glimpse into the world his father cultivated in a modest butcher’s shop on Lygon Street, Carlton.
Fresh flowers sit in vases, and paintings of pigs, cows and carcasses cover the walls. Classical music blares from a CD player, as butchers trim eye fillet and talk about a play a customer saw last night. Leo Donati presides over it all, wearing a shirt and tie underneath his white butcher’s jacket.
But, at the age of 77, Leo is ready to hang up his coat, and is seeking a buyer who will continue to sell high-quality meat as Donati’s Fine Meats has done for more than 53 years. If all goes to plan, the shop will change hands early next year.
The experience of shopping at Donati’s, though, will be impossible to replicate.
“It’s not just a butcher,” says restaurateur Ako Miura, who has used Donati’s at her Japanese eatery Ima since day one. “It’s more like a destination to see a show or something. You walk in there, and it’s … a dramatic comedy.”
Journalist and broadcaster Virginia Trioli, a customer for 40 years, describes the end of Donati’s as “devastating”.
“It is very rare to have had someone who was such a feeling, thinking, intelligent, politically aware and alive, incredibly well-read and very sophisticated man running a butcher shop,” Trioli says.
Leo’s intellect is just as renowned among customers as his grumbling, whether it was about your order or a novel you liked.
“I will miss going in there and having vicious arguments about absolutely nothing – and sometimes about very, very important things,” says Trioli.
One day in early December when The Age visits, Leo is talking composers with a regular while the customer’s order is wrapped. “Wagner’s fantastic. There’s three: Wagner, Mahler and Strauss – but not the pissy Strauss [Johann]. Richard Strauss, the real Strauss!” Leo says.
Getting to work at 5.30am six days a week for the past half-century has felt easy for him because of these conversations.
“Everyone’s different,” says Donati. “Some conversations are incredible. Most of my friends I met here.”
The shop is Leo’s domain or, as he likes to say, “his stage”.
For Sicilian chef Rosa Mitchell, proprietor of Rosa’s Canteen, a visit to Donati’s is like “walking into Italy”.
“What other butcher shop in the world do you go in and you have opera playing?” she says.
Leo’s son Marcello has worked in the shop for 26 years and says that doing so was a way of understanding who his father is.
“I never saw that [side of him] at home, and that was the revelatory thing here.”
At a party for their regular customers in early December, Marcello said: “Dad is fearless in his convictions and sets an example that has to be followed. Having said that, he is … what some might politely call a divisive figure, which has meant that our customers have a loyalty bred from a deep appreciation of authenticity.”
Marcello chose not to take over the shop. Trained as an architect, he’s ready to pursue that path but the exact details he’s keeping close to his chest.
One thing is certain, though. “I can’t work anywhere else after this, and I can’t work for anyone else.”
In retirement, Leo wants to spend more time with his eight grandchildren – who range from five to 25 years – do some travel and read more books. “I’m not going to be lost,” he says.
His customers will be, though.
Donati’s devotees come for veal the colour of rose quartz, plump pork and fennel sausages, gleaming slabs of beef and free-range eggs stacked high on the counter. Then there are the Christmas hams, brined and smoked on-premises.
“We’ve all been talking among ourselves, literally saying where the hell are we going to shop now?” says Trioli.
Wholesale customers including Miura and Mitchell emphasise the care and attention to detail they got. Leo himself would often deliver their orders.
For customer of 20 years Travis Giansiracusa, Donati’s is about more than the meat.
“It’s been fun coming here. It’s an experience, my kids love coming here to see everyone … We’ll miss that part of it.”
Beyond the shop, many viewed Donati’s as the last living symbol of Lygon Street’s past as an Italian village of grocers, bakers, butchers and delicatessens.
“I mean Lygon Street’s changing a lot but … for a lot of local people, [this closure] is huge,” says Miura.
“Any time I think of that end of Lygon Street, I always think of Donati’s.”
402 Lygon Street, Carlton, 03 9347 4948
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne eating out and restaurant editor and editor of The Age Good Food Guide.
