Melbourne Food and Wine Festival- See you in 2013

We were sent a link to this lovely video today on the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival featuring Massimo Bottura, Rene Redzepi and Brett Graham.

By the looks of the video this year’s festival was a resounding success- looking forward to next year!

Exciting Opening in Melbourne

Pei Modern is the project of a gastronomic dream team from Melbourne including Mark Best, Peter Bartholomew, David Mackintosh, Ainslie Lubbock (Manager) and Matthew Germanchis (Head Chef) which opened on the 2nd March. The team are interested in the  global democratisation of food – what in Paris is called ‘Bistronomy’ – that is, making sure that beautiful high quality ingredients can be offered to as many people as possible by concentrating on fresh and uncomplicated cooking techniques and offering these in a restaurant setting that is clean, modern and elegant.

The restaurant is situated on the porte cochere of Collins Place, home to Sofitel Hotel Melbourne and the Kinoi Cinema Complex, and has been designed by Helen Rice.

The restaurant will be open 7 days a week, from morning coffee, through lunch and dinner, to late night drinks in the bar.

 

You can have a peek at www.facebook.com/peimodern for some photos and updates.

Pei Modern

45 Collins Street

Collins Place

Melbourne

p. + 61 3 9654 8545

e. info@peimodern.com.au

www.peimodern.com.au

Made in Camden, London

What is it about burgers that inspires such obsession?

Heston Blumenthal has made the headlines with news that within 8 months, he plans to serve the world’s first test tube burger in his restaurant. The burger will be made of bovine muscle and fat stem cells cultured in Dutch doctor, Dr Mark Post’s laboratory and definitely will not come cheap, with a price tag of £207, 000.

Blumenthal isn’t the only one who is looking into the science behind one of the most widely eaten snacks in the world, Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine also delves into the world of hamburgers. In the book, Nathan explains the physics of spatula-frying burg­ers and the process of mak­ing the ulti­mate burger by a com­bi­na­tion of sous vide, liq­uid nitro­gen, and deep-frying techniques. Sounds a little more complicated than the burger van along the road.

No longer are burgers confined to fast food chains. With London favourites, Meat Liquor,  LuckyChip and Hawksmoor all serving up burgers in all shapes and sizes and burger blogs popping up over the web (Burger Me!), we can thoroughly embrace the tasty new trend without entering Macdonalds or having to pay £207,000. Although, we’d love to know- what is it about burgers that inspires such obsession?

Le Dauphin – Paris

Around the World in 80 dishes by David Loftus

Food photographer and friend of Spoon David Loftus was once called “The World’s Greatest Food Photographer” by none other than Jamie Oliver.

Besides being a favourite of Jamie, he has also worked with a host of respected chefs such as Alain Ducasse, Heston Blumenthal and Alice Waters so when we heard he was releasing his own book filled with recipes- “Around the World in 80 dishes” we knew it would be something special.

The book features 80 recipes from chefs all over the world whom David has worked and also doubles as a 350 day travel journal taking in everywhere from Battersea, New York and the Bahamas with stories, flavours and beautiful photography. If you love food and travelling then this is the perfect book to take you on your own personal culinary journey.

http://www.davidloftus.com/

Young Turks at Ten Bells

Sergio Coimbra wins ‘The Gourmand Cookbook Award’ photography prize

Brazilian photographer Sergio Coimbra’s beautiful double book Studio SC has won ‘The Gourmand Cookbook Award’ photography prize.

The duo of books which have a photographic and culinary narrative present food photography in a unique way. The books are linked to each other, forming duets and quartets  of images and feature dishes by some of the world’s most renowned chefs such as Massimo Bottura, Heston Blumenthal & Ashley Palmer-Watts, Marcus Wareing & Chantelle Nicholson and Nuno Mendes.

The book comes inside a wooden box and was a limited edition of 1000 copies, which were distributed to a selection of chefs and gastronomy professionals.

For more information about Studio SC and Sergio Coimbra, please contact:

Luciana Bianchi- luciana.bianchi@studiosc.com.br

The Hardwick is positioned 8th on Top 50 Gastropub list

The Top 50 Gastropubs Awards sponsored by The Morning Advertiser are now in their 4th year and have established themselves as a leading event for the premium end of UK pub trade.

Last year’s runner up Hand and Flowers in Marlow, Buckinghamshire was crowned this year’s winner which tops off a fantastic few months for the gastropub after it won its second Michelin star late last year. The Hardwood Arms in Fulham, London took the runner’s up spot.

By Mark Whitfield

Spoon favourite, Stephen Terry’s The Hardwick in Abergavenny came 8th and was the first Welsh pub on the list.

For the full list of winners click here and comments from the winners and runners up can be seen here.

ABC Radio Interview with Massimo Bottura

While Massimo Bottura was in Melbourne recently taking part in The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival he was interviewed by ABC radio for the programme First Bite by Michael Mackenzie.

Their conversation about Massimo’s philosophies on food makes for a very interesting show. You can listen to ’Massimo Bottura: an irreverant innovator” online now on the ABC website.