Chef Josh Niland’s first book, The Whole Fish Cook Book by Hardie Grant Books Australia, won two James Beard Awards last night in the USA; best in category Restaurant and Professional and the ultimate accolade Book of the Year. This is a significant achievement of note! We have visited Saint Peter in Paddington for rave reviews but yet to visit Fish Butchery.
The James Beard Awards are held each year and are arguably the most prestigious culinary book awards in the USA, if not the world. The awards are given in many categories recognising chefs, restaurateurs, authors, journalists and broadcast media.
Josh Niland is the only Australian to have won a James Beard Book of the Year Award. Josh Niland is widely recognised for his transformative work with fish. Josh and wife Julie Niland opened their award-winning restaurant Saint Peter in Sydney in 2016. It has been celebrated by the Australian culinary community since opening. Niland has also attracted global attention from some of the world’s greatest chefs for his respectful, groundbreaking and unique approach to working with fish.
Melbourne restaurants are getting ready to re-open but we have experienced amazing takeaway dishes from a number of restaurants during challenging times. While we are excited about the re-openings we hope many Melbourne restaurants still offer takeaway options as it's proved to be a hit. Here are a few of our favourites -
The Olympics may have been postponed, but the highest rated American single malt – Westward Whiskey – has still managed to take home gold at the 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Are you in a rush to make dinner and don’t want to resort to fast-food or microwaveable meals? Typically, eating healthy dinners requires a little more preparation and patience than less healthy ones, but this doesn’t always need to be the case.
There are plenty of healthy andfast recipesthat you can prepare in under 10 minutes, so you have something to eat without compromising on nutrition. Even though these recipes are designed to be quick, you will still get as much nutritional value from them as you would with dishes that take longer to prepare – it’s all about the quality of the ingredients.
Melbourne Gin is a gin specifically crafted for Melbourne bringing together the best of Melbourne in a gin. Australian Distilling Company have produced a series of gins for each Australian city, and we were sent a bottle of Melbourne Gin to review. It's a follow on for us to the Adelaide Gin, which also has it's own unique character.
Tremila fresh gourmet pizzas, popular with Melbourne cafes and restaurants, are now available for home delivery at affordable prices. The good news is also that Tremila pizzas are top quality and come vac wrapped so you can store up a supply in the freezer. Tremila is about young chefs expanding their Melbourne wholesale gourmet pizza business in light of COVID-19 lockdown laws. Brilliant.
In our current world of COVID-19, with struggling or closed hospitality businesses and overworked frontline staff, the initiative OPERATION THANK YOU: FRONTLINE MEALS launches today. The goal of this initiative is to show our gratitude by feeding frontline workers dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic while supporting Melbourne’s hospitality industry, who will provide meals paid for by the community. All donations can be made via the website (www.frontlinemealsmelb.org) that has gone live today. All monies will pay the hospitality businesses and see that the food is delivered to those who are working so hard for us on the frontline.
Recently we were sent a box of goodies from small boutique fruit & vegetables business Early 'N' Fresh, recently mentioned by Epicure at The Age. This company were supplying cafes and restaurants in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne and they got hit really hard with the closure of non essential services. In an effort to save their business and their employees who depend on them, they are now offering home deliveries of fresh fruit & vegetables to homes in Melbourne. Big point of difference - they deliver produce to order at reasonable prices not pre-made packages! For a next day delivery your order will need to be received by 10pm (that's generous!). They require a min $50 spend on a delivery which is fair enough. And amazingly there is NO charge for delivery! Ordering is easy on the website. I reckon it's a game changer.
