Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia edited by Helen Duffy
Explore Australia's culinary delights
Robyn Lewis
Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia
Australia’s reputation as a nation of food excellence steps up another notch with the publication of Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia compiled by a foodie team from Explore Australia.
Packed with gourmet producers, ‘eateries’ (from fine dining to cafés and gastropubs), stores, markets, wineries and vineyards, breweries, distilleries and cooking schools in all States, Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia takes you on a voyage of culinary discovery around our major food regions, from the south west corner of Western Australia to the topical Far North of Queensland, and just about everywhere in between.
If anyone has lingering doubts that Australia has yet to reach culinary adulthood, this book should put them to rest. Particularly for visitors from overseas, who may be concerned that they cannot eat well in Australia, or if you are a resident travelling interstate (or exploring your own), Great Gourmet Weekends of Australia will inspire your culinary adventures and have you salivating before you leave home.
Where to taste? From farm-gate stalls, cheese and chocolate makers to producers of honeys, meats and seafood, you’ll find something here to inspire and delight on your next short gourmet break.
Throw in a selection of vineyards and wineries, some suggestions for accommodation and dining, and you’ll be making your bookings in no time.
Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia was written by six food, wine and travel writers:
- Sydney-based Sally Hammond, who covers NSW and the SW coast of Victoria;
- Melbourne-based Tricia Welsh, who explores much of her home state;
- former outback cook and raconteur Quentin Chester who writes about South Australia from his new home base on Kangaroo Island;
- Perth-based restaurant reviewer and writer Carmen Jenner;
- Queensland and global food writer Liz Johnston (also famed for her excellent 2009 biography of Wolf Blass); and
- Sue Medlock who uncovers gourmet delights in Tasmania.
The result is far more seamless than might be expected, thanks no doubt to editor Helen Duffy and the production team at Explore Australia (Hardie Grant).
Around half the book covers NSW and Victoria in equal measure, as perhaps befits their larger populations: in NSW along the coast from the Tropical North to the South, and inland from the New England Tablelands via the Hunter Valley to the Snowy Mountains and Capital Country (pan-ACT), the Riverina and Murray.
I especially like the ‘outer-city gourmet experiences’ for those who perhaps can only fit in a day trip or who may want to take visiting guests somewhere special. Certainly the writeup of Ritual Restaurant in Nelson Bay (near Newcastle on the Central Coast) has me planning a culinary pilgrimage soon.
There are plenty of hidden gems in the NSW pages, as well as the must-taste and visits, and I defy anyone (including the staff of VisitVineyards.com!) not to uncover something new, especially in the array of food.
With over 4000 wineries and vineyards Australia-wide now in our own online database, of course the coverage of wine in a print volume of this size can only be limited, but as well as focussing on the signature grape varieties of each region there are also some up-and-coming varietal stars to look out for.
Victoria is similar; the main wine regions included are the Yarra Valley, the Bellarine and Mornington Peninsulas, in the east from Gippsland to the NE and Alpine Lowlands, and in the west from Heathcote and Macedon’s Spa Country to Mildura and south via the Goldfields and Pyrenees to the South-West Coast (Great Ocean Road region).
I’m delighted to see some destinational favourites including George Biron’s famed Sunnybrae near Colac, and new regional showcases including Port Phillip Estate at Red Hill South.
Reflecting perhaps both its strong European heritage and significant recent investment in the food industry by its government, South Australia ‘punches above its weight’ in Great Gourmet Weekends’ culinary stakes. Although around half the coverage given to NSW and Victoria, the SA section showcases a diversity of culinary gems, from cooking schools in the Adelaide Hills to the seafood producers of Kangaroo Island, and there are some more finds here.
Almost everything is within easy reach of Adelaide, making South Australia one of the most concentrated short foodie break destinations in Australia.
Perth is described in Great Gourmet Weekends as ‘the most isolated city on earth; there’s a saying that WA is an acronym for ‘wait awhile’ … a little behind the eight ball, particularly in cultural circles’. In wine and food, I have to disagree with this assessment. At VisitVineyards.com we have recently seen a number of publications coming out of WA that are well in advance of those from other Australian states, and certainly the WA produce we have tried is equal to the nation’s best. And don’t get us started on Western Australia’s outstanding wines.
Perhaps the West's café culture was a little slow in catching up following the relaxation of the local licencing laws, but a short walk around Sydney’s CBD shows that ‘sin city’ is no further ahead than Perth. Western Australia is rich in local produce and now is home to the largest truffle producing area in the southern hemisphere. Throw in marrons, venison, crayfish, trout, fruits, olives … really the west could almost be self-sufficient in gourmet foods and quality wines.
Great Gourmet Weekends will show you where, mainly in the south-western corner, but there is also a helpful section on Broome.
Perhaps it’s me but I find the lack of any visual dividers between the states and their regions starts to get a bit confusing around this point, especially as there is no index. If you want to look up Dudley Wines Cellar Door and Café for example, you have to firstly know where it is (Kangaroo Island, SA); or to see what’s featured in Heathcote you need to know it’s located in Victoria’s Northern Goldfields, which aren’t well positioned on that state’s map, either. I prefer maps that are slightly more functional than decorative.
If any state’s food has come of age then it’s that of Queensland, where despite the predominance of the almighty (and exceedingly fresh) prawn and monster steaks, often seen together, the menu has moved on from surf and turf towards more subtle local offerings. Brisbane is Australia’s fastest growing city with a population now exceeding 2 million; add 600,000 on the Gold Coast and Hinterlands, and 10 million visitors annually, and you can see why the demand for high quality food and wine has boosted local producers and makers to new heights in recent years.
There’s a vibrant restaurant scene well described in Great Gourmet Weekends, cheese and pasta makers, fruit and olive growers – in fact if you can find it in the rest of Australia you can be fairly sure of finding it in Queensland, and then some, especially as you head towards the tropical north with its wide array of exotic fruits, tea and coffee locally grown and made. Usually omitted from Australian food guides, Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands receive good coverage.
En route northwards, that mecca for Melbourne’s winter sunseekers, Noosa, has its own culinary festival the equal of any, and its hinterland is a hive of local producer activity, especially for organic and biodynamic production. As befits the demands of discerning diners, the Noosa restaurant scene is as sophisticated as any in regional Australia.
Queensland’s wines used to be the butt of mango jokes, but this is no longer the case. A recent visit revealed that improved winemaking techniques and standards and an evolution of knowledge of suitable grape varieties for the warmer climate, especially on the cooler elevations of the Granite Belt and other hilly hinterlands away from the humid coast, have resulted in wines that can more than stand up to much of the competition of more southerly climes.
The 2007 launch of Australia’s first College of Wine Tourism, under the visionary guidance of local educationalist John Neville, will surely see this continue, with its own winery, wine label, full commercial restaurant, cooking and winemaking schools, at Banca Ridge and Bistro at Stanthorpe in the heart of Queensland’s Granite Belt.
Again, Great Gourmet Weekends provides a good introduction, especially in the absence of a recently published Queensland local food guide. It’s one of the best chapters in the book.
As usual and along with Queensland, Tasmania brings up the rear, and given its hard-earned reputation as the gourmet state I find its 31 pages a bit of a skim, with little that is new. Perhaps they just ran out of room.
However, Great Gourmet Weekends provides a general introduction to the regions of Tasmania: the ‘Southern Valleys’, East Coast and ‘Central North’ (the Tamar Valley and the NW Coast west to to Cradle Mountain). There is enough to whet your appetite; I refer intending visitors to the excellent and also recently published Picnics in Paradise and A Guide to Tasting Tasmania for deeper coverage of the former apple now gourmet isle.
As with all printed guides some of the entries in Great Gourmet Weekends are out of date already, but this is inevitable especially in the rapidly changing restaurant scene. Check before you visit to avoid disappointment.
Each featured producer is listed with physical address, phone number and website; each region covered also has a list of its main food and wine festivals to avoid those ‘if only we’d known before we left’ moments. However, again these are only a sample, a taste of things to come when you start to plan your next culinary adventure.
Illustrated with a huge array of photographs provided by local photographers, producers and state and regional tourism authorities, Great Gourmet Weekends is also a literal snapshot of the food scene around Australia – a far cry from where we were in the 1990s, that’s for sure. To me it’s a pity that the book ends with a rear cover shot of Campari sodas, and not of something Australian – or perhaps this just reflects the multicultural society that Australia has become?
Overall – and despite these minor deficiencies – Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia is a good introduction to what’s on the menu around Australia’s food regions, especially in the eastern states and South Australia.
Australians should feel proud that we can more than fill a volume of this size, and we can only anticipate what culinary delights await us in the decade ahead.
Great Gourmet Weekends of Australia edited by Helen Duffy is published by Explore Australia Publishing Pty Ltd, a division of Hardie Grant Publishing Pty Ltd (Melbourne, 2010; sc 424 pp). It retails for RRP A$36.95 and is available from bookstores, newsagents and other outlets.
Subscribers of VisitVineyards.com and Winepros Archive can purchase Great Gourmet Weekends at 12.5% discount via our book partners Seekbooks (postage extra).
Win one of 10 copies of Great Gourmet Weekends in Australia here »
If you buy a copy before Australia Day 26th January 2011, you can also go in the draw to win a fabulous weekend escape in South Australia's Barossa Valley, valued at A$7400, or one of five Maggie Beer gourmet hampers, courtesy of Escape Australia. For more details click here »
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