Chez Dre

With a desirably hidden Melbourne address: at the end of a bluestone lane, in an unassuming utilitarian warehouse, Chez Dre is a stylistic juxtaposition that recasts the disparate passions of a Paris trained pâtissèrie to create a stimulating and whimsically discordant café atmosphere. The brief to reappropriate this empty brick warehouse into a boulangerie, pâtisserie and café, was coloured by a collision of inspirations. Traditional Parisian bakery shopfronts, lush Chinoiserie planting and patterning, Art Nouveau detailing and Deco geometries are abstracted and combined into a variety of spaces of differing scale. The raw interior is shaped to accommodate experiences intimate and animate, lingering and transient. With a vast kitchen, communal dining and tearoom, sumptuous long banquette seating, pâtisserie and coffee display counter and external courtyard, the plan is sequentially unfurled. Chez Dre is a home for the passions of the pâtissèrie, whose performance and produce is reflected by this similarly stimulating and theatrical environment amid Melbourne’s unique and vibrant hospitality landscape. Photography by Andrew Wuttke We are proud to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land upon which Chez Dre stands. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.