Bistro Bain Marie

The bain marie at the Bankstown RSL bistro is a long stainless-steel servery counter built into the buffet line, with a row of heated wells running its full length under a sneeze guard. Each well is sized for a half-pan of food and labelled with the standard servery list: roast, peas, beans, carrots, gravy, mashed potato. The wells are empty in the photograph, the stainless surfaces wiped clean. The sneeze guard above is angled glass, mounted on chrome stanchions. Heat lamps run along the underside of the guard, all of them dark. Above the bain marie, the deep crimson ceiling of the bistro picks up the colour of the columns and the patterned carpet.

Bain maries were the engine room of any RSL bistro: a row of heated wells holding the day's roasts and vegetables at serving temperature, with the staff topping up the wells as the lunchtime and dinner trade worked through them. Bankstown's bain marie ran the length of the buffet line and served the bistro's daily food trade for decades. The Bankstown RSL was demolished in March 2019. The bain marie, the heat lamps, and the sneeze guard came out with the rest of the bistro fit-out before the building came down.