Darina Allen: What's new on the Australian food scene?

Wow, the food is fantastically good in Australia. I’ve just come back from a two-week trip to promote my new book Grow Cook Nourish. A whistle-stop tour where I visited Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay and Tasmania.

There were lots of radio interviews, TV appearances and a sell-out Grow Cook Nourish dinner at Merricks General Wine Store on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne. So what’s new on the Australian food scene? It’s been over a decade since I last visited. The food was already fantastic, creative and delicious but on this visit, it was even more memorable. I should say that there was nothing random about my choice of restaurants, I can’t bear to waste even one eating slot so breakfast, lunch or brunch and dinner were all carefully plotted.

The most notable change was many of the top cooks and chefs are proudly incorporating lots of native ingredients into their menu and are showcasing indigenous foods. Some attribute this to the Rene Redzepi effect, the acclaimed Danish chef who changed the image of the Nordic peninsula and brought his whole team to Australia in 2016. He was intrigued by the wealth of indigenous foods and the knowledge and inherited wisdom of the Aboriginal people.