Anthony Femia has been selling and aging cheese in Melbourne for 15 years, ever since Richmond Hill Café & Larder lured him down from Sydney in 2010. In 2012, he was approached by Con Christopolous to help design and build Spring Street Grocer in the CBD, home to Australia’s first underground cheese cellar with purpose-built maturation rooms.
In 2025, Femia is best known as the owner of Maker & Monger at Prahran Market. What began as a French food cart offering Swiss raclette and two kinds of toastie has since grown into a city-wide go-to for farmhouse and artisan cheeses from near and abroad. His fondue event at MFWF 2025 was a hit – here’s how he made it so.
Maker & Monger Fondue Night
– Held at Maker & Monger, Prahran Market
– Friday 21 March, 7.00pm to 10.30pm
– $85 per person
– Ticket inclusions: food with a welcome drink.
– Sold out at 60 pax
Give us the rundown on your event, how did it come together and what did everyone eat? Fondue for me brings back memories of my favourite comic book series, Astérix & Obélix – specifically their adventures in Switzerland, where they attend a fondue party hosted by the Romans. We love an epic cheese party here at Maker & Monger; we encourage our guests to lose their lactose inhibitions and let cheese ignite their senses. We decided on a three-course menu, with the feature dish being a guided fondue experience. This communal activity brought out the inner child in everybody and had strangers becoming best friends very quickly over the art of stirring the cheese and wine into a silky-smooth concoction. We started the night with a traditional Norman charcuterie plate, with beurre de baratte airfreighted from Normandy and fresh local radishes and terrine by City Larder. Dessert was a light but satisfying meringue with fresh raspberries and a large dollop of crème épaisse de Normandie – a classic pairing in the town of Gruyère, Switzerland, and of course, Normandy.
How did it go? What was the highlight?
It was a remarkable evening, not only for our guests, but also for our staff. There’s something unique about events in the market after dark.
The highlight was when each group of four was tasked with making their fondue. It was the perfect icebreaker for each table, with friendly banter and competition among each group to make the perfect silken cheese and ensure no splitting of curds or thick glugs of cheese. A close second was eating the fondue and watching each guest carefully dip their morsel into the molten cheese without losing it; I believe there were some cheeky penalties for any stray cubes of bread or broccoli that ended up at the bottom of the pot.
Any curveballs or challenges along the way, or perhaps something new you learned?
Yes, we unfortunately used the wrong fuel gel on the night – the delivery of the proper gel got lost in transit. Using a fire-starting gel recommended by Bunnings, a couple of pots had minor flame issues which needed attending to during the evening. We also had to resuscitate some fondues that were not made correctly. Overall, these issues were minor and added to the theatre of the evening as staff were busy running around putting out flames or vigorously whisking pots to get the fondue silky again. We also had a couple of customers not show up without notice and this was annoying because we had a waitlist of people who really wanted to attend.
Every year, the question we’re asked most around event submission time is about pricepoints and inclusions, what can you tell us about how you landed here?
Great question. So, we decided that a pricepoint under $100 per person including booking fee was our goal, as we’d already had success selling events at this price point. We’re not a restaurant with full amenities and proper waitstaff, so we didn’t want to set the price so high that people would come with fine-dining expectations. We’re a retail shop run by cheesemongers and we were promoting this event as a share-table experience, which meant keeping the price under $100 per head to meet expectations. Our price factored in food and staff costs, MFWF event fee and the market’s fee for cleaners and security on the night.
Our biggest challenge was the cost of hiring tables, chairs, glassware and cutlery; it unexpectedly came in at 85 per cent of our revenue from the ticket sales. We were able to negotiate a wholesale discount with Harry the Hirer that reduced this cost, but we still had to cut back on hiring a DJ, floral arrangements and a videographer to ensure that we were close to breaking even. By not providing a built-in beverage pack in the ticket price and relying on selling rare wines by the glass and by the bottle, we were able to claw back some revenue.
You need to decide what type of event you want to hold: is it a money-making event? A marketing and branding opportunity? Or a reward and celebration of your loyal customer base. Our events always fit into the second and third categories.
Everyone wants their event to stand out – what advice would you give to other hospitality operators when they’re brainstorming for their next event?
Choose a theme or hero dish that your hospitality business is known for. If the event is based on something you love to cook, eat or share, word will spread.
How did you promote your event?
We’re lucky to have a loyal customer base and people who recognise our brand and found our event via the MFWF channels. Most tickets were sold in the first couple of days when ticket sales went live. Our external marketing team from Into It, Claire Adey and Daisy Slade, worked their magic on our Instagram and EDM to sell the rest of the tickets, which were gone in under two weeks. It’s very important to have your event organised by the first deadline for MFWF so you can capture people buying tickets as gifts for Christmas presents. We had 40 per cent of our attendees mention the tickets were gifts.
What about the best event you’ve been to recently, what made it so memorable?
It would have to be Glamour on the Grid at the Formula 1. We were part of the food offering on the night, and together with the Atlantic Group we designed a floral display which incorporated little florettes of tête de moine, that rich alpine cheese of Switzerland. So many remarkable people of Melbourne were in attendance, and they were so impressed by the display and that it was actual cheese and not flowers. It brought great joy to see people enjoy this cheese for the first time ever, and to hear a lot of them say they love visiting our shop for cheese and wine – or that our toasties have saved them from many a hangover on a Sunday. Seeing that people recognise our brand meant the world to me.
As a small-business owner with a small team, you experience a lot of challenges, long hours and sacrifices to ensure your business is operating and paying bills on time, and you rarely have time to stop and appreciate what you created. I’m very proud of how hard my team worked during March to be part of MFWF.
Maker & Monger, Prahran Market, stall 98/163, Commercial Rd, South Yarra, @makerandmonger