G'day. If you're new here, and you are interested in the Melbourne food and drink scene you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or the email newsletter below. Thanks for visiting and enjoy eating and drinking in Melbourne. Cheers.

Inevitiable any inside story on the restaurant business in new York will draw comparisons.Phoebe Damrosch doesn’t serve up the hard drugs and bad sex that Anthony Bourdain dragged us though. But the food is much, much better in Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter. It gives an insiders account of the opening of Per Se, a restaurant run by one of the world’s top chefs Thomas Keller of French laundry fame (who was rumoured to be opening at Crown in Melbourne for a while).Damrosch gives an insight into the detail that goes into the service in the restaurant from staff education through to handling food critics.

“It occured to me at the end of our first day training that if I were a skeptic, I might find this whole thing a little cultish. There were philosophies, laws, uniforms, elaborate rituals, an unspoken code of honour and integrity and, most important a powerful leader…” she says.

If you are interested in service and what it means. If you are interested in how  it is anticipating the needs of the diner rather than being servile and what it really takes to offer proper fine dining - especially if you work in hospitality - then read this book (And click on one of the links to buy from Amazon).

Popularity: 14% [?]

Photography: Christina Simons

p>Do I need say anymore about Bourdain’s blog apart from I found this via Slashfood?

Perhaps I should also milk the archives:

Part 1: A beer and a fag with Anthony Bourdain

Part 2: On Ladro

Part 3: Eating in Melbourne

Part 4: No hippy shit

Part 5: casual eating

Part 6: Putting the boot in

Part 7: A year in nam

Popularity: 15% [?]

Perhaps your way here from the food issue of The Age (Melbourne) Magazine . If you haven’t seen the mag, London-based Aussie food writer Terry Durack quotes Anthony Bourdain from an interview with Tomato from a year ago.
You can check out my full Anthony Bourdain archive. He says this of Ronnie di Stasio in part 3: “He’s a fucking madman. And you have to be a fucking madman to be in the reastaurant business. There should be a statue of him in the neigbourhood. In all ways he is not bogus. He is passionate about food.”

Lookalikes: Susan Sontag and Anthony Bourdain

Part 1: A beer and a fag with Anthony Bourdain

Part 2: On Ladro

Part 3: Eating in Melbourne

Part 4: No hippy shit

Part 5: casual eating

Part 6: Putting the boot in

Part 7: A year in nam

Popularity: 12% [?]

Thanks to Anthony from man that cooks for pointing out that the well known celebrity chef and writer Anthony Bourdain (left) bears a striking resemblance to the late intellectual and writer Susan Sontag (right).PS: Promise not to post too much on Bourdain in near future although we reserve the right for one final round up on our interview with him.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Photo: Christina SimonsAnthony Bourdain is going to retire to Vietnam for a year. He’ll turn 50 there and perhaps write another book. Continue Reading

Popularity: 6% [?]

Photography: Christina SimonsAnthony Bourdain has eaten some pretty nasty things on his travels. But it’s not always the gross-out factor of the food that is the problem.”I had a meal in Sydney so fucking awful at a place called Chinadoll. Very trendy, faked out Asian fusion - Just horrible, over decorated, over priced, fake Asian food. It was offensive. And even the name China doll is so fake.” Continue Reading

Popularity: 7% [?]

Photography: Christina Simons

Anthony Bourdain on trends in casual eating:”Joel Robushon is doing a more casual stuff in Paris. It’s a chef led thing and I think it’s good for the world to take a little bit of stuffiness out of dining.”He says the ingredients and technique are still impeccable but the eating is fun. Continue Reading

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photography: Christina Simons

We’re each drink a Corona on the banks of the Yarra in Melbourne at Fenix. He drags on a fag and something catches his eye. What would Anthony Bourdain really like to be drinking? “If god made beer, he’d be brewing Guinness. In Dublin. Maybe he does actually,”

Popularity: 6% [?]

Photography: Christina SimonsAnthony Bourdain is having trouble finding enough white anchovies for the evening meal but his mind is on his evening out with chefs.”I do my job, I’m having a really good time and when I finish dinner tonight I’ll probably go hanging round with a bunch of chefs and cooks and restaurant people and get really drunk. If chefs haven’t taken me there I haven’t been there. I put myself in the hands of the local chefs. That’s who have always made my basic decisions for me in Melbourne from the very firstday that I arrived here.”So where else does he visit in Melbourne? Continue Reading

Popularity: 10% [?]

Photography: Christina SimonsThis what what he had to say on Ladro being voted the best new restaurant in Melbourne last year:”I love that kind of reactionary vote. I mean was that a fair assessment or is it fair to compare Ladro to fine dining.I don’t care. I love the place. I’m a huge fan of that. It was a relief to me. It was an antidote to a lot of other places. Continue Reading

Popularity: 6% [?]