Despite the impact of the GFC* on the CBD** (Australians love abbreviations) Melbourne boasts a vibrant and innovative restaurant scene that can rival anything to be found in Europe or America. Melbourne also hosts a magnificent food and wine festival each March which attracts an international roll call of chefs, critics, wine-makers and sommeliers.

A brief visit on a trip to see some of Victoria’s vineyards, in February, meant that dining opportunities were limited but we were determined to sample some of the city’s gastronomic highlights. Here are details of four restaurants with which we were really impressed.

Blue Chillies

Located on super chic Brunswick Street in Fitzroy this no nonsense Malaysian diner enjoys a diverse urbane, urban clientele and is deservingly popular. This was recommended to us by local resident Dan Buckle, the gifted young wine-maker at the celebrated Mount Langi Ghiran estate.

Attentive but relaxed black-clad waiters brought us the short, confident menu and wine list. Two of the day’s special starters featured whitebait – fried in fritters with a spicy dipping sauce and marinated with vegetables in a dark unctuous amalgamation. Both were delicious with a steely Clare Valley Riesling 2008 from Neagles Rock (which we import to the UK so were pleased to see on the list) but the light and crispy, piscine fritters won the day. Main courses were equally successful. Slow cooked pork belly with bak choi and a ragout of spicy shredded beef were deeply satisfying and perfect comfort food for weary travellers. Service is efficient if a little detached and pricing restrained for this part of town. 3+/5

Jacques Reymond

Secluded in the smart suburb of Windsor (which looks and feels like Hampstead) this is the address for refined Gallic gastronomy in Melbourne. The sprightly, silver-haired, eponymous patron is something of a celebrity chef Down Under but that doesn’t detract from the day job of serving up cutting edge contemporary cuisine based on a firm classical French foundation.

Thick white linen and (arguably over) attentive uniformed waiters set a deliberately opulent tone in a tastefully designed dining room. At eight courses the Menu Dégustation is not for the time poor (or cash poor for that matter) but this is high end cooking from a talented chef at the top of his game. Small portions of exquisitely presented food dazzle the taste buds. Highlights included Hiramasa Kingfish and Ponzu with Hervey Bay Scallop and a fantastic Crispy Quail Breast with Tajine Flavours and Black Rice but everything here is meticulously crafted and very well thought out.

Jacques daughter Nathalie, who is head sommelier, has compiled a list featuring lots of iconic Aussie wines as well as a fair smattering of fine French bottles. Brian Crozer’s clean, dry, Petaluma fizz saved us from the enthusiastically suggested Dom Perignon comme aperitif but a Grosset Springvale 2006 Riesling and a stonking Curly Flat 2005 Pinot Noir both showed Australian wine in a very pure light. 4/5

Cutler & Co.

Cutler and Co., on Gertrude Street, which opened to a fanfare of favourable criticism last year, is widely acknowledged to be the hottest dining address in town. This former metal works artfully blends old (unpainted plaster walls) with new (a space-age black bar and Blade Runner-esque neon sign). The customers are a similarly mixed bag of middle-aged gastronomes and bright young things.

The food is knowingly accomplished but stays the right side of poncy. The service is equally astute – Adam at front of house and head sommelier Sally both manage to be on the ball but quite discrete which is typical of Cutler and Co.’s understated élan. Everything we sampled here was delicious: flaky anchovy pastries and feisty peppers de Padron to start with, followed by Heirloom tomato salad with marinated vegetables then a delicate pressed quail terrine with a foie gras ‘cigar’. A tuna sashimi with cucumber and cuttlefish was also faultless. Indeed, the only slight oddity was the cheese offering of our local Montgomery Cheddar which is excellent but seemed unnecessary food mileage.

The wine list here is noteworthy and Sally’s selection of a Springvale 2007 Pinot Noir, from Tasmania, was a treat as was a Mount Langi Ghiran 2006 Shiraz that was generously gifted to us by thoughtful Mr Buckle.

The patrons also own Cumulus Inc. An ‘informal all day eating house in the CBD, which we very much look forward to visiting. 4+/5

St. Jude’s Cellars

To prove the point that Cutler and Co. isn’t a one-off gem Fitzroy also boasts St Jude’s Cellars (on Brunswick Street) that exudes a similar minimalist perfectionism and quiet self confidence. The Victorian dining room is light, airy and welcoming with a central bay of floor to ceiling shelving that doubles as a wine shop. Bottles can be bought here to ‘drink in’ for a modest $15 corkage fee. If anything the service here is even more astute that at Cutler and Co. The savvy staff sensed that we weren’t au fait with the menu and offered to bring us a selection of dishes until we’d ‘had enough’. This took quite a while because the cooking here is exemplary. A nervy Shobrook Riesling was delicious with a dozen Fine Claire oysters followed by whitebait and terrific little balls of smoked haddock ‘Kromesky’ wih garlic mayonnaise. Main courses of poached veal loin with corned hash browns and Western Plains pork bell with confit fennel, apricot and burnt honey were also impeccable. A bottle of 2007 Emily’s Paddock Shiraz from our friends the Laughton family at Jasper Hill was necessarily costly but helped round off an exquisite dinner and a wonderful trip. 5/5

Clearly one could linger far longer in Melbourne and sample other great restaurants but our brief snapshot was more than enough to start us planning a return visit.

Jason & Tom

With thanks to the Laughton family at Jasper Hill for their terrific hospitality.

*Global Financial Crisis

**Central Business District

I’ve just spent an enjoyable sojourn in Hastings, Hawke’s Bay attending the New Zealand Syrah Symposium where I had been invited to talk about Northern Rhône wines and present a tasting of some personal favourites. This well-organised gathering of wine geeks was preceded by a Cabernet Merlot Conference all of which added up to a great deal of wine tasting and a potential overload of information. Some of the lectures on the likes of ‘Leaf Plucking and Canopy Management’ or ‘Colour Dynamics and Co-Ferments’ were not for those suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder but there was a wealth of more readily digestible material to enjoy.

Happily the British wine press were out in force with the likes of Neal Martin (the Wine Advocate), Matthew Jukes (Daily Mail & MoneyWeek), Oz Clarke (of TV fame) and Jamie Goode (www.wineanorak.com) all making contributions from the floor. Tim Atkin (of the Observer and www.thewinegang.com) rounded off a long day with an excellent trans-global tasting of 10 Syrahs, from as far afield as Israel and San Antonio, providing superb commentary and plenty of food for thought. Tim began his presentation by saying that ‘no-one should talk in public for longer than they can make love’ which gave him some concerns about his 2 hour time allocation!

Unsurprisingly, New World winemakers featured heavily and Dan Buckle of Mount Langi Ghiran in Victoria tutored delegates through a fine range of Australian Shiraz culminating in a vertical of 3 vintages of his own wine (2004, 2006, 2008) which amply illustrated that you can have concentration and finesse in equal measure. Local luminary Rod Easthope, of the celebrated Craggy Range estate, gave an insightful talk on his winemaking philosophy which centres on painstaking vineyard management and a minimalist intervention policy during vinification. Rod eschews the addition of enzymes, tannins, acids and natural supplements as he wants to ‘make wine, not a beverage’.

Australian journalist and winemaking legend James Halliday gave a headline talk on Australian Shiraz, which accounts for 36% of their domestic market. James was clearly disgruntled by a fellow Aussie journalist who had overslept and caused his late arrival but he rapidly regained his composure and shared a fund of detailed information, on climate, geography and wine styles, with the audience.

Hawke’s Bay winemakers John Hancock of Trinity Hill and Peter Cowley of Te Mata Estate sampling Syrah.

The most high octane delivery of the day was from American Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein who shone the spotlight on the U.S. on-trade market. Evan’s break-neck speech highlighted the need to re-enthuse American tastes for Syrah and he beseeched producers to visit the States in person and champion their wares. The gist of his argument was that the market wouldn’t evolve of its own accord but that American sommeliers were receptive to new tastes and ideas.

For my own part I was pretty intimidated addressing such august and well-informed company. Fortunately, my wine selections which included Alain Graillot’s 2007 Crozes Hermitage, Pierre Clape’s 2004 Cornas and Jean-Louis Chave’s 2001 Hermitage were well received and my slick Powerpoint slides (artfully assembled by my colleague Hamish) pretty much offset my failings as an orator.

After a day discussing, tasting and mentally immersing ourselves in Syrah we retired to the bar of Hastings’ wonderfully restored Opera House – where we slaked our thirst with – beer – of course!

With thanks to Peter Cowley and all at Te Mata Estate for their magnificent hospitality during my visit and Nicola Pentelow at Game Plan Events for her impeccable organisational skills.

An invitation to speak at the New Zealand Syrah Symposium in Hawke’s Bay at the tail end of January was too tempting to resist. It was with a keen sense of anticipation that I packed summer clothes and headed off for the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’. I also packed 25 bottles of iconic Rhone wines to accompany my presentation which furnished me with inordinately heavy bags that I was relieved to check in at Heathrow. The principal sponsor of this cork-sniffers convention is Air New Zealand, the fringe benefits of which were a business class return ticket to Auckland & a double baggage allowance.

The flight from Heathrow to Auckland lasts a gruelling 26 hours (including a 2 hour pit stop in LA) which is a daunting prospect, only mitigated by Air New Zealand’s terrific service and high-end food and wine offerings. The in-flight menus are devised by celebrated Kiwi chefs Peter Gordon, Geoff Scott and Rex Morgan and include dishes such as spicy coconut and coriander prawn curry with jasmine rice, chicken thigh stuffed with pumpkin, pumpkin seeds and chipotle chillies with maple glazed squash, and a trio of 42 Below vodka and honey cured salmon with poached prawn, sesame wasabi seared tuna and karengo (seaweed – neither had I) potato salad. This is the most ambitious and by far the best airline catering I have ever sampled with lovely clean flavours and simple presentation. Air New Zealand have clearly decided that the way to passengers’ hearts is through their stomachs – it works for me!

As their informative literature tells you “Air New Zealand is the country’s largest single server of New Zealand wine, proudly serving 6.5 million glasses to passengers every year.” If you don’t fancy a glass of several premium Sauvignons there are some great Chardonnays and ‘aromatics’ too. I plumped for the complex, citrus-edged Coopers Creek Swamp Reserve Chardonnay 2007 in an effort to gain some insight into the Hawke’s Bay wine scene. Eschewing a comprehensive range of Pinot Noirs, I then opted for a glass of Villa Maria’s Cellar Selection Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. This cruiser-weight, Bordeaux blend wasn’t subtle but was well received by this weary traveller. Having dined superbly I even snatched a few precious hours sleep. If you do have to do the long haul, I couldn’t recommend Air New Zealand more highly. It’s a Kiwi thing!

In this day and age, I’m conscious that I am showing my age by the fact that I still use a wrist watch as my main means of telling the time. Younger generations are choosing iphones and such like to keep a track on the hours of the day and I’m sure that when my young children learn to tell the time there may well be a new bit of technology that will help them out. My 5-year-old daughter recently laughed out loud when I showed her a photograph of a record player but  she’ll never know the excitement of buying a 45rpm single, or remember the Jam getting five successive vinyl 45s straight to the converted number one slot.  I digress…

Now, working in the wine trade, I’ve come to realise that I’m marking the passing of time in a different way. Last summer, I’d take a favourite wine almost for granted – my first Yapp favourite being the Lirac 2005: La  Famille Maby. A modest collection at home was soon dispatched and replacements sought – easy. Then, just before Christmas, I went to replenish my supplies only to hear the shocking words from our shop manager “we’ve moved on to the 2007 vintage now”.  Don’t get me wrong, the Lirac 2007 is still a great vintage (as it was for the Rhône generally) but it wasn’t my beloved 2005.

I moved house last week and in all the boxing and packing that goes on I could hear bottles being clinked and wrapped back in the old kitchen and, as well as worrying about my guitars being damaged, I was equally concerned about my last bottles of Lirac 2005, Châteauneuf du Pape: Père Caboche 2004 and Saint Joseph 2007: Domaine Georges Vernay.

So, if there is a moral here, it must be to make sure you appreciate your favourite vintages while you can and have a few put aside for another and not necessarily rainy day – you may want to mark the passing of time with an old friend!