When Marie Christou thinks about what it means to be Greek, the first word that comes to mind is ‘passion’ – followed by ‘history’ and ‘culture’, that quickly come out of her mouth, without missing a beat.

“I love being Greek,” she says. “Everything I do revolves around it.”

And by “everything” she means her two parallel business ventures: hospitality and soap-making. For Marie is the person behind ‘House of Pan’, an intimate music venue in Brighton, a haven for lovers of Greek music, named after the Ancient Greek god of nature.

It all started with a bar of soap.

“I really loved using goat’s milk soap, it’s very good for your skin,” says Christou, whose background was in decorative arts, not in the cosmetics industry.
“I use to buy a random soap with a goat on the package,” she remembers. “It was an expensive soap that didn’t really last long in my shower. For some reason I thought it would be nice to have a soap that I could give to someone as a gift, something fabulous, not just a bar of soap. And I went a bit too far,” she laughs.

Too far is an understatement when used to describe the process of creating a mould for a sculpted torso of goddess Aphrodite. Another sculpture followed, this time for the torso of Apollo. And that’s how Pan soaps were created. “There’s quite a lot of work [that goes] into it,” says Christou, admitting that the greatest challenge she faced was mastering the soap recipe.

“I didn’t invent goat’s milk soap, it’s been around for centuries. But I had to learn how to make it and ultimately make it work for me,” she describes. “Then I had to master the sculptures and deal with branding and packaging.”

The name ‘Pan’ came naturally; aside from being a natural product, which appealed to Christou, Pan is also the god of nature, who happens to be half-man and half-goat. With her first range of products ready, all she needed was a place to work on her soaps and sell them.

“My fiance had this restaurant, which I ended up taking over,” she says. “I closed it to renovate it, so at the same time that I was developing the soaps, I was also painting, and gold-leafing and setting the place up.”

Her initial plan was to reopen it as a place to host her business – hence the name ‘House of Pan’ – but her friends kept urging her to keep it as a restaurant.
“It happened by accident,” she says of her life as a restaurant-music venue owner. This explains her own fascination with House of Pan, why she talks about it as if she was not the one who created it and whose signature is all over the candle-lit place – from the Byzantine icons, to the ornamental railings to the ceramic jars.

“It all just happened,” she says.

“The ambiance in the room, the food, the music, the intimacy.”

All these are traits that have won people, coming from all over Melbourne to soak the Greek-specific atmosphere that many say doesn’t exist any place else in the city.

“Walking into the House of Pan you suddenly realise you have left Melbourne for a few hours and you find yourself in a small koutouki in Greece,” reads one typical review on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Christou herself is a bit reluctant to go into detail and advertise her business for fear of losing this particular ‘word-of-mouth’ quality.

“We’re tucked up in a little laneway, so a lot of people don’t know we’re here. We get a really nice bunch of people. When the music starts, everybody is singing along,” she says.

Live Greek music was an element that existed in the previous incarnation of the place, which she kept as part of the new era. Initially held on Thursday night, these sessions were so successful that they had to be expanded to additional nights of the week to meet demand. Much to the delight of the Greek musicians who speak highly of the place, she intends to keep things this way.

“I love it the way it is. I’m not here to make millions of dollars, I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m more passionate about the food, the music and the ambience.”

Not that she doesn’t have more aspirations. An official launch of the soap business is in order.

“You only get one chance to launch your products, so it has to be done properly,” she explains, then starts talking about her next project – a range of candles, inspired and scented after the 4,000-year-old perfumery discovered in Cyprus by archaeologists 10 years ago. “It’s the scents of Aphrodite,” she explains. “I want to use them in my candles.”

One can imagine the essence of lavender, bay leaf, rosemary, pine or coriander oozing out of the candles in the small restaurant, combined with the dim light, and the rebetika melodies of the bouzouki, creating a unique Greek sensory experience. “I love that,” she says.

“I embrace my Greekness.”

House of Pan is located at 121A Church St, Brighton, VIC (near Middle Brighton Railway Station). For information and reservations, call 0407 556 704.

* For Marie Christou’s soaps, visit pansoaps.com.au