In 2016, the Publisher of Gault&Millau Australia Fritz Gubler decided to commence a project to define broadly what constituted Australian Cuisine. Having published G&M Guides in Australia from 2014, a large portion of the restaurants reviewed indicated that they served “Modern Australian Cuisine”, but most were unable to give an informative explanation, or even the defining characteristics of such a cuisine at that time. It was this lack of a clear answer that gave birth to the AussieCuisine project, with its mission statement being:
“To define the current cultural cuisine of Australia whilst acknowledging its past and offer guidance for its future. To advocate its values domestically and internationally by providing vested industries a clear identity to promote the vast and talented culinary landscape within Australia.”
What originally was planned as a three month project, ran for nearly three years reaching this conclusion about Aussie Cuisine:
“A fresh, light, vibrant and innovative cuisine;
featuring the diversity of Australian inland and coastal produce
and reflecting our relaxed outdoor lifestyle.”
After presenting this summary to Industry, and whilst being largely acknowledged as being largely representative, Chefs raised further questions about the regionality of our cuisine, and clearly we knew that outcome was purely just a capture at one point in time. No sooner than we wanted to further explore the subject COVID-19 hit, and we suspended the project whilst the Industry, and our society fought to survive.
Since the Pandemic, I have continued to review Restaurants for News for The Food Lover and other peak Industry organisations. The passion to advocate for our Chefs and Aussie Cuisine on the World stage has burned even more deeply, alongside one of the foundation members of the project Jeremy Ryland. In that time, we have seen a significant progression in Aussie Cuisine since our conclusion, and we want to capture that from both the Industry and diner’s perspectives. Aussie Cuisine belongs to us all, and we are here to bring those stories together in one place for us to share our viewpoints.
Jeremy and I will be reaching out to you for contributions, and we will accept all opinions, as food is a very subjective and personal medium, so I hope you will come along for the journey, and we look forward to collaborating with you all.
Let’s discover what Aussie Cuisine is together!
By Dane Richards
