Food & Drink. Travel. Est. 2005
Get boozed-up here. Try a relaxing tea or a buzzing coffee
Win prizes by reviewing restaurants for Google and Zagat The good news is that after years of decline Taste of Melbourne has rejuvenated itself, upgrading the restaurants exhibiting their food and moving to Albert Park. The bad news is that if the weather turns bad – and the forecast is for showers and a temperature that won’t rise above 19C – then you’ll be damp and cold queueing for your credits and food at the MoVida and Mamasita stalls on […]
I’m not going to do FebFast this year because I suspect giving up alcohol altogether isn’t going to do anything for Australia’s economic progress. Let’s face it, the economic impact on restaurants and bars of Febfast is horrendous. Most hospitality venues are doing it fairly tough and the fact that the economic model is based on selling alcohol, February is about to become a lot tougher. And let’s not forget, outside of the resources sector, the contribution winemaking and restaurants […]
As the Christmas and new year break recedes and Australia Day approaches, once more the open wound of the hospitality game one again resurfaces: surcharges. This time though it has hit the headlines big time thanks to the perfect storm of a silly season slow news cycle and Masterchef judge and serial restaurateur George Calombaris mouthing off about it in the Power Index (where I’m pleased to see That Jess Ho rates a mention in its analysis of the Melbourne […]
There are only two main species of Oysters that we find ourselves gobbling in Australia, the flat and the cup-shaped. This week at the Oysters and sake event I organised with Andre from Kumo and Adriane Strampp as part of the Fringe Food Festival we had 13 varieties including from (Tasmania) Blackmans Bay, Saint Helens, Pipe Clay Lagoon, Dunalley; (South Australian) Coffin Bay, Streaky Bay, Kangaroo Island, Smoky Bay, Thevenard (Ceduna); and (New South Wales) Wallis Lakes and Tweed Heads. […]
Consult a financial adviser before drinking from a Riedel. Dishwasher tablets erode your glasses and crockery. Use liquid instead. Decant heavier reds at least 8 hours before drinking. If you want to drink champagne (usually a blend of chardonnay pinot pinot meunier and pinot noir) rather than sip it, use a pinot noir glass. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding scrapes with cults. There was the incident in London on the Tottenham Court Road where, bunking off school aged 14, […]
For a very hot country, it is remarkable how little care we give our ice. Sure, you can buy large bags of ice pretty much anywhere, but it’s the kind of ice to stick in a bath or an Esky and chill beer and sauvignon blanc; not the kind of stuff to put in a cocktail. A while back the shiny Japanese ice machines at Match Bar were a revelation. And now The Everleigh, which sits atop the old Dante’s […]
Like its name, the fit out of this latest Der Raum spin-off is very slick and let’s say Americano. That’s slick tiling and panelling. The narrow bar inset with copper. And the fact it’s very very exclusive, allowing only 15 people in at once. That means while you are there sipping you hanky panky (above) behind the shut gate, late coming friends have to wait in the cold with nothing but Melbourne’s smallest artspace, the Twenty by Thirty gallery, to […]
A: It didn’t used to but increasing in Australia we are buying into the idea of Fairtrade, as these charts show. This week Harriet Lamb director of the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK is visiting Australia, a leader in certification of the ethical sourcing of products. The fact is that Europe has been leading the world in sourcing Fairtrade goods for some 18 years while in Australia in the past five or six years we have only come to buy […]
Check out Everything wanted to know about coffee (but were afraid to ask your hipster Barista) part 1 I‘m drinking coffee made from beans that are one month old. The beans are from the Bambito estate in Nicaragua. They are arabica, from from a mutation known as Caturra. It’s here in Australia because Nolan Hirte, owner of Proud Mary in Collingwood, brought them back to be followed shortly by 450kg he sourced directly. It’s the big change in coffee locally […]