Fanny’s Icon Dies

Here’s an excerpt from The Age from last year about the death of Gloria Staley. Click her name if you wish to see her family details.

Trailblazer…Restaurateur Gloria Staley with chefs and head waiter, Claude Verryser (far left) at her Lonsdale Street restaurant, Fanny’s, in 1984. Photo: Peter Mayoh

[M]elbourne’s restaurant world is mourning the loss of Gloria Staley (nee De Salis), who died on May 11, 2010  aged 90. When Staley’s restaurant, Fanny’s, opened in Lonsdale Street in 1960, it was one of Melbourne’s most innovative and stylish, and she was considered a trailblazer.

Staley would devise the seasonal menu for her chef to cook — something you would not see today. Fanny’s closed in 1993. Son-in-law Malcolm Spry said she was a creative, theatrical woman ‘‘who made dining glamorous’’.
Of the restaurant’s name, he said she thought it was one people would remember. Staley’s influence continued at Glo Glo’s in Toorak and  Chez Oz in Sydney. She is survived by three children and six grandchildren.

Hilary McNevin, The Age, June 2 , 2010