Hot 50 restaurants a sure bet on excellence
In the kitchen at The Daniel O'Connell
IF eating out were a race meeting, it might go like this. Sydney wins the Glamour Stakes. Melbourne takes the Middle Market Handicap while Adelaide romps home in the Bang for Buck Cup.
The Weekend Australian Magazine’s annual Hot 50 Restaurants edition, a national snapshot of where dining is at, produces results that, while hardly radical propositions, reinforce what’s good about several of our major cities when it comes to the business of dinner. Sadly, some capitals are well down the field when it comes to exciting, meaningful restaurant standards.
Here’s how our latest hot list takes the big-city stereotypes even further in 2014. Hottest restaurant? Rockpool Sydney. The quintessential power-restaurant that just happens to tick every box, emphatically.
Hottest chef? Martin Benn, of Sepia, Sydney. A creative genius whose commitment to the craft of cooking is unparalleled in this country.
Hottest wine program? Bentley, Sydney. Nowhere else will the allure of the grape be so irresistible, so well-explained, so well-matched to your tucker.
HOT 50 INTERACTIVE: Search the Hot 50 list and read reviews of every restaurant
These are elegant, world-class restaurants that persuade diners to loosen the purse-strings and not feel too bad about it. Sydney has the dazzle factor.
In Victoria, where there is no shortage of talent, the lack of big spenders and international visitors (particularly corporates) means the coat is cut to suit a different piece of culinary cloth. Among our elite Hot 50 … St Crispin in Collingwood, Mister Jennings in Richmond, Town Mouse in Carlton, Luxembourg in St Kilda. All of them out of the CBD in relatively modest digs where substance — in terms of food, wine and service — trumps style, or at least the interior design budget.
In South Australia, we sense a resurgence in quality of the eating-out options and, at the same time, recognition of the need to provide value for money. It’s almost as if standards have drifted while prices remained static. And that’s a win. Hottest Value Restaurant goes to a North Adelaide gastropub — The Daniel O’Connell — where the do-it-in-house philosophy means the food is unique and ridiculously cheap. Among other Adelaide restaurants punching at a national level for “heat” are Peel Street, Press Food & Wine and Bistro Dom.
If only it were as good in other capitals. In Canberra, Brisbane and Perth, an almost obsessive, market-driven surge in informality too often has translated to slackness. There are just not enough operators remembering the “h” in hospitality. Perth seems preoccupied with restaurants pushing a “foam and soil” barrow the eastern states abandoned long ago. In Tasmania, there has not been enough progress in the restaurant scene over the past 12 months to make more than a modest impact on our list.
According to magazine editor Christine Middap, this is Australia’s most honest snapshot of the national restaurant scene.
“We like to think Hot 50 is the perfect document to give any visitor to this country interested in knowing about where to eat out really well,” she said. “It would be great if the talent were more evenly spread but the fact is, it’s not a level playing field. This is a dining meritocracy.”
Source: The Australian - 23 August 2014
