Welcome to CityChats, where Brisbane Times meets our city’s most interesting characters on our most iconic form of transport. This week, Giorgina Venzin from Venzin Group tells us about the importance of creativity and community in the industry, and why Brisbane has such a unique hospitality scene.

We meet Venzin at her cafe Darvella, just down the street from Bulimba ferry terminal – which is easily the prettiest in Brisbane. The 104-year-old wharf is heritage-listed, and features in some of the merch for Venzin’s Morningside cafe, Rising Sun Rituals.

What made you want to pursue a career in hospitality?

My dad has a Thai restaurant I grew up working in, Mons Thai Camp Hill, which he still owns 25 years later.

I just grew up working with him and kind of got attached to the buzz and the feeling restaurants and cafes give you. So, I got that feeling in my veins and decided to take a leap and try that here in Brisbane.

I did a degree in business and tourism, and I wanted to move to New York and do event management. I loved events and that side of creating.

Do you think there’s been a bit of a resurgence in Brisbane in the past couple of years with bakeries, and baked goods in general?

We opened Darvella in COVID, and we were probably like one of five bakeries. Now there’s so many, but there are so many great things. Since COVID, I feel so many amazing, talented chefs have moved to sunny Queensland or the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast, so we have such great talent.

We’re creating such great products, and I also feel with our lifestyle and the way the culture has shifted, people are going out – rather than going to a fancy restaurant once a month, they’re going to a bakery every second week and getting their fun coffee and their pastry.

So, I think just the dining culture has shifted to that more, like, low casual quick experience rather than, like, so much fine dining.

Do you think there’s a newfound creativity in our cafes? Obviously you’re known for your specials.

I mean, the fun drink thing literally has blown up in the last three months. I can’t believe how crazy that’s rolled out everywhere. And I feel like our industry changes so much, you’ve got to keep creative and rolling with new trends or what people want.

I went to America earlier in the year and they’re doing amazing things but, yet again, our quality here is top-notch. We have great coffee, great food, great produce. So I think we are the leaders in the cafe-bakery culture trends moving forward.

Venzin announced after the interview that her cafes – Darvella, Rising Sun Rituals and Citron in Wellington Point – would move from monthly drink specials to seasonal specials.

This year’s much-anticipated Ekka strawberry special will launch this weekend at Darvella, Citron and Rising Sun Rituals.

Can you give us a sneak peek of any upcoming specials, maybe inspired by that?

Oh my god, I haven’t thought that far ahead. We’ve just started the hot chocolate at Darvella, which we’ve done every year, but we’ve changed that from the New York trip. Probably some pink cold foam that I had in New York. We brought back the banana pudding. So, we’ll do that again. I’ve got to go back on my camera roll and see what I had and then help roll it out.

What were your favourite things that you ate in the US? What will you bring back?

Just the concept of creativity. Everything that we had there, I felt tastes better here for quality, but they’re just creative.

I think especially New York is such a creative place to be in whatever industry you’re in, because it’s such a big population, everyone’s competitive, so they’re just trying new things. So, I just got great inspiration from being in such a dense place with so many people trying that.

How do you organise all those different ideas?

Pretty much my camera roll of photos and be like, “Oh, we went here. We tried this. We like this”. My poor chefs are just getting sent so many inspiration [pics].

I actually would love to go to Dubai next because I feel like they’re doing so many cool things. It’s just great being around, like, a dense pocket of creativity to bring back inspiration.

Something you’re known for online is you go out and you try lots of other hospitality venues and you give them tips and things like that. A lot of people would say that’s just helping your competition. So why do you feel the need to be a kind of positive force in the Brisbane scene?

I felt, growing up, the first decade of doing hospitality it was a very lonely world and everyone would not share things. You’d say, “how is business?” and they’d all say, “we’re busy” and it was quite hard for me. I just felt very much alone.

Where I am in my career, I’ve met so many young hospitality entrepreneurs now. And I want to make it a less lonely hospo world. I feel like even if I’m doing my viral cookie butter latte in Bulimba, it does not matter if someone in Wellington Point is doing the same drink, because it’s so far away that I’m not competing with your regular customers. I think the more we share, the better. It makes it easier because business is tough.

You mostly stay out of political things but you have shared a couple of things about how the economy is affecting businesses lately. Why did you feel the need to say something there?

Now, more than ever, I’m getting so many DMs and questions and asking for help. And I’m feeling it in my business. I know they’re all feeling it in their business.

So, I feel like if there’s any way to make it a little bit easier and a little bit less – when it’s getting hard, I want people to feel like it’s not personal to them and their business. I’m feeling it, too. And if we can take the weight off a business owner’s shoulders and make it feel a bit light, like that’s what I want to do.