High Street Memories: Alice ‘in Frames’ Zaslavsky on North Road, Ormond
From high school teacher to MasterChef Australia alumni, Alice Zaslavsky – also known as Alice in Frames – cultivated her culinary curiosity on North Road, Ormond in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.
“I spent a lot of my childhood living in Ormond, so for me, that drag between the street I lived in and Ormond Station was somewhere I frequented multiple times a day, every day. We lived off North Road and it’s so nostalgic for me on so many levels,” says Zaslavsky.
The successful cookbook author, radio presenter and ABC TV show host of A Bite to Eat with Alice, remembers eating her first pizza on the strip aged 16, and more recently honouring her paternal grandmother, Babushka Zina, at Rada Russian Restaurant – raising a legacy toast at her wake.
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“North Road is a very suburban strip with quite a tight knit community that never felt gentrified,” she says.
“It’s quite sleepy, yet still vibrant, and there were lots of local characters who were very memorable to me in my adolescent years.”
North Road, Ormond was Alice Zaslavsky’s stomping-ground. Picture: realcommercial.com.au
Last year Zaslavsky spent two weeks traveling around Australia on a work trip with Israeli-British restaurateur and chef Yotam Ottolenghi, who offered some sage advice for the recipe queen turned media star.
“Yotam looked at me in the eye andsaid; ‘Alice, you’ve comes so far, why are you in such a hurry?’,”she says.
Ottolenghi introduced her to Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks which saw her stop chasing opportunities with the intensity she had to that point.
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“Otto had just read the book and got me to recognise that that is roughly the number of weeks you get in a life if you’re lucky,” she says.
“That’s when I realised you don’t need to squeeze the shitake out of every moment. It’s more what you’re doing with those weeks that matters most.”
Zaslavsky will work on her fifth cookbook in 2025, film a second season of A Bite To Eat with Alice and has stepped away from weekend ABC Radio Melbourne breakfast to also spend time writing a children’s book. It will give her two free days a week; a chance to perhaps linger along North Road for old time’s sake.
More walks down memory lane
Chyka Keebaugh on High Street, Armadale
Collette Dinnigan on William Street in Paddington
Zan Rowe on Puckle Street in Melbourne’s Moonee Ponds
Early memories and local characters
My first job was at McDonalds on the corner of Jasper and North Road as a teenager. I worked front of house and loved the drive through because it was eyeball to eyeball contact with the public. My first hairdresser was called Theodora’s also on North Road. She was the first hairdresser to give me tips in 1998. I begged and pleaded with Mum to cut and dye my hair. I won that argument. An amazing health food shop I loved to go to for organic produced was called Sunnybrook Health Food Shop – it’s where I started my organic interest in food. Life really changed when they opened.
Alice Zaslavsky as a child at the McDonald’s where she would eventually work. Picture: Supplied
Jim’s Fish and Chips was known to always throw in an extra potato cake with my order which I loved. I would get off the 630 bus a few stops early just to go here after school.
Remezzo Pizza – these brothers made fantastic pizza and are located across the road from Jim. It was the first time I tasted a proper Italian pizza when I was 16 – I liked it so much. I ordered a Quattro Formaggi and I made a replica of it when I was a contestant on MasterChef and it was inspired by these guys.
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In praise of veggies
I loved dining at was Global Vegetarian which was one of the first veggie restaurants in Melbourne that has now closed down. They used to make vegan curries and they were definitely ahead of the times. They also made delicious stir fries.
My husband Nick grew up in East Bentleigh, and when we first started dating, he talked about his dad being vegetarian and how they’d go there for years. I reckon we must have passed one another before we actually met!
A family tradition
Growing up my family regularly ate at Steak Bank Charcoal Grill – it had all the weird decor inside and the food was exceptional. There is also a Russian restaurant on North Road called Rada which doubles as a disco.
Alice Zaslavsky with her family at a restaurant in North Road, Ormond in the 1990s. Picture: Supplied
Rada Russian is where we had my paternal Babuska Zina’s wake after her funeral. She was the gregarious life of the party and had what we call her pominki there – it literally means remembrance. We gathered at Rada to feast and honour her in 2021. What I loved about that restaurant is that you do feel like you’re in somebody’s living room.
Favourites that are no longer
A Chinese restaurant called Tea and Rice was situated next to the lighting shop and where I’d go regularly. It makes me emotional thinking about it. There was little in the way of signage so most people didn’t even know it was even there. It was owned and run by a lovely lady. I would go there with my maternal Babuska Raya and we would eat short soup together.
North Road, Ormond. Picture: realcommercial.com.au
I also remember going to the local video shop on North Road where my parents would get pirated video tapes of Russian television show. It was a huge business! I would go to Russian school upstairs during the week. Officially, I did Russian school in Elsternwick, but went here during the week for extra culture knowledge.
An Indian restaurant called Bombay By Night was another spot we loved to go. One had to brave the boom gates on North Road which would be three trains worth of waiting before they went up again. The station has been upgraded now; which has no doubt made a huge difference for traders and commuters.
