BRANCH OUT TO SURVIVE By Ed Charles From The Australian, Entrepreneur: AGRIBUSINESS Finding new ventures can help grape growers improve their profitability, writes Ed Charles THE lot of the winegrower is one of feast or famine. After years of bumper harvests and over-capacity, there’s a drought. While this will address the supply imbalance, says Mark McKenzie, executive director of Wine Grape Growers Australia (WGGA), the industry still needs to radically restructure. It needs to be entrepreneurial, finding other sources of […]
journalism
Who knew science tasted so good
THE CURIOUS COOK Ed Charles June 02, 2007 I’M in the Melbourne restaurant of much-awarded molecular chef Robin Wickens, who is inventing a new dish, and I’m sneaking a preview. My experience of professional kitchens so far has been through Gordon Ramsay’s Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. But in Wickens’s kitchens at Interlude (211 Brunswick St, Fitzroy), the 32-year-old British chef doesn’t stomp around and clatter pans; everything among the five chefs here is calm and hushed. In fact, the quietly spoken […]
In the trenches: The coffee business
From In The Black – May 2007:? You know that coffee is a big and profitable business when the drinks and snackfood giant, Coca-Cola Amatil, turns its attention to it. Two years ago it bought Grinders Coffee, whose founder Giancarlo Giusti is one of Australia’s coffee pioneers. Grinders was founded in 1962, when coffee in the English-speaking world, including Australia, was considered pretty awful, and the Asian market for coffee had yet to evolve. When sold it had a turnover […]
Sweet success in chocolates
The Australian, Entrepreneur ONCE upon a time chocolate was the preserve of the rich. That’s if you could find any decent chocolate to eat — a chocolate culture didn’t really exist in Australia. Then, inspired by their travels, local entrepreneurs began trying to replicate what they had found abroad. One of the first was Yarra Valley winemaker Peter Wilson who — seduced by the taste of Valrhona chocolate in France — started making his own in the late 1990s and […]
Herald Sun: Ed Lines
ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food, wine and bars BEER DE LUXE As the fourth owner of the Upper and Lower House space in Federation Square in two years, the Belgian Beer Cafe’s George Christopoulos is renaming it Beer De Lux. Old-fashioned burgers are on the menu and upstairs is a grill. Italian food is served downstairs and sweets are available in the atrium cafe. A beer garden is planned. DOGS DINNER Food at the Dogs Bar […]
Herald Sun: Ed Lines
ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food, wine and bars KITCHEN CRACKDOWN Nobody at Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar (66 Bourke St, city) wants to comment on the impounding of its meat slicer or the future of its kitchen table. Health chiefs at the City of Melbourne are denying any restaurant crackdown, but restaurateurs are complaining about draconian enforcement. Appeals are pending, but the days of eating at the table in the iconic Pellegrini’s kitchen could be numbered. UNCOMMONLY GOOD […]
Street scenes
The Weekend Australian, Travel & Indulgence Ed Charles goes fossicking in Melbourne’s city alleys and discovers a treasure trove of dining gems April 14, 2007 MELBOURNE may recently have landed its own Rockpool Bar & Grill, but with this one exception, high-profile restaurants are not where it’s at in this city right now. Rather, central Melbourne is teeming with exciting hole-in-the-wall restaurants and basement bars hidden down tiny alleys off the city’s famous laneways. With a few exceptions, the laneway […]
Herald Sun: Ed Lines
ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food, wine and bars GIGI’S REJIGGED A veteran of institutions such as Pellegrini’s, Florentino and Brunetti’s, Venetian-born “Gigi” Cipolato has retired after more than 50 years in the business. Chef Allan Parker has taken over Gigi’s (69 Ford St, Beechworth) and refurbished the shop-front restaurant, which now roasts its own coffee. While the menu is new, it maintains Gigi’s Italian roots. NEXT OF KIN As the name suggests, the recently opened Kin […]
Herald Sun: Ed Lines
ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food, wine and bars CHEAP EATS Check out the Tuesday night meals at Swinburne TAFE in Prahran, being run under celebrated Geelong chef George Biron from April 22. For $25 you get four courses of fresh, seasonal ingredients cooked by third-year apprentice students. Biron says the wine list is excellent and reasonably priced. Mecanix Restaurant, O’Brien’s Walk, off 144 High St, Prahran. Bookings essential, ph: 9214 6589. BISTRO 0 – DEVELOPER 1 […]