So there I was drawing an interview to a close with Atul Kochhar from the glitzy Indian restaurant Benares smack bang next to the Jack Barclay Bentley dealership on Berkeley Square.
A man wants to congratulate Atul on the best meal he’s ever eaten. And he’s from Melbourne. I overhear that his name is John.
Atul tells John that he’s talking to a food writer from Melbourne.
I inflate my chest and confidently stick my hand out and firmly shake.
“Hello. John,” I say.
“John Lethlean?” he asks excitedly.
Suddenly the best meal in the world had been bested by meeting the best food writer in Melbourne.
“No, um, Ed Charles.”
“Herald Sun,” I mumbled and crept away.
I think I ruined the moment for him.
This weekend saw the launch of Lethlean and Necia Wilden as the food editors of theWeekend Australian Magazine. It is exciting to see in the current recession a magazine investing in food writing, but I can’t help that they may have left it five years too late.
There again timing is difficult. You start planning at the peak of the boom. But before you know it the bankers fucked up (I met Atul Kochhar the day after Lehman brothers went belly up in September).
Normal punters are eating out less frequently, turning to cheaper (unorganic) produce and thinking very carefully about how much a funky avocado slicer costs (I you disagree with me, let’s talk again in six months time and see where we stand).
I thought this supplement,a lthough full of great stories, lacks a sense of place in this climate with the feature “Great Australian Bites”, where the authors traveled the country so we didn’t have to, a case in point.
It has a fin de siècle feel to it, a bit like the Last Days of Disco, which is now a collectors item on DVD.
The most interesting and innovative feature (unless you are a vegetarian) was “Quack shots” on everything the best of duck. Although it is perhaps time to ackowledge that The Flower Drum’s promise is about as tired as the cliche of chefs and food critics playing with knives in cover shots (The cover of Kitchen Confidential is still best).
Apparently, along with the introduction of unpretentious food writing the magazine in now more compact. What’s your take on what they dished out?
Me? It’s time for a comforting bar of chocolate and the consolations of Alain de Botton.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not a fan of Lethlean anyway, but I did read the Weekend Oz magazine just to see what he and Necia had to say. Their blurbs about the current hot eateries left out crucial details about price – an important matter for plebs who pay for their own meals.
The cover shot was very ordinary – they appeared to look like twins!
I enjoyed reading Christine Manfield’s perspective on the food miles debate. She made some important points about supporting local and artisan producers.
You’re spot on regarding the timing/”sense of place” – I felt that a lot of it was tone-deaf, given the current times. I’d actually forgotten about the “Kitchen Fundamentals” page, but was rather surprised that a $36 nutcracker and a gimmicky-looking coffee maker were included as “fundamentals”.
As for the lack of price information in the food reviews, I’m not sure that restauranteurs would be all that pleased, either. MoMo isn’t doing itself any favours with a website still under construction filler page, but describing the cost as a “fairly serious commitment” is off-putting without being actually informative.
Given what seems like a rather wobbly commitment to food coverage by the local (Melbourne) dailies, I’m keen to see how this evolves.
Mmmmm, duck…
I think this video from the australian website says it all:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=81021156372&h=0kyYq&u=plBF6&ref=mf
I guess it’s a cheap shot, but the way he pronounces restaurants made me giggle a bit. Well, a lot. And then Necia’s declaration of hoping to cover some really interesting “issews”…followed by her inability to think of any off the top of her head didn’t strike me as REVOLUTIONARY, exactly.
I thought it was incoherently targeted. If they were looking to attract the super-food focused types, what was new? The duck pages new to them, but familiar stuff to anyone who’s read a GT/Vogue Entertaining/Cuisine in the last 15 years. Omitting the prices was irritating and, as Injera says, tone-deaf.
But the real problem is getting new (to them) restaurant reviewers, new (old) wine writers and not adding another writer to accompany David Herbert’s recipes. No complaints about what he does, it’s nicely judged stuff, and if he’s a bit cloying the food is approachable and cookable. But where’s the stretch? They need a cheffy writer too.