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Category: Food and Beverage / Food and Cooking

What the world can learn from Australia's restaurant scene

10:13 UTC+8 April 4, 2017 | Patrick Wood

Heston Blumenthal (Twitter: @gbchefs)

The self-assured foodie culture in Australia is something the rest of the world should learn from, says acclaimed chef Heston Blumenthal.

The man who's made a name for himself by bringing science and food together is in Melbourne this week to accept a lifetime achievement gong at the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards.

The prestigious event has come Down Under after being hosted in London and New York recently, and Blumenthal said it made perfect sense to him.

External Link: Heston Blumenthal is known for experimenting with liquid nitrogen and other tools not normally found in a kitchen.

"Australia is a paradox," he told ABC News Breakfast.

"I have never seen the food scene, on the planet, a culture explode like in Australia because you have not been strangulated with the measurable 'better and best, right or wrong, you can't eat this with this'.

"There is something here in Australia that is a lesson for the rest of the world."

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While other fine-dining restaurants in Australia have closed recently and top chefs have dismissed suggestion the scene is struggling, Blumenthal has enjoyed enormous success here.

When he brought his signature restaurant Fat Duck to Melbourne for a six-month stint in 2015, more than 300,000 applications were lodged for a seat at the $525 degustation. Of those, almost 15,000 got in.

And his latest Australian venture, Dinner By Heston, has received two chefs hats in The Age Good Food Guide since opening in late 2015.

Yet while Blumenthal says he is honoured by the gong from the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards — to be held on Wednesday night — it wasn't the final say in what makes good food.

"This is an amazing event, but do not take it as reality," he said.

"All those thousands of chefs who are working their socks off in all of those restaurants may be in a list one year and not in the other [and] they think they've failed.

"[So] it's a wonderful event, it really highlights areas that maybe the Michelin guide isn't, it is fantastic for that. But don't take it as reality."

AustraliaPlus


 

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