Wow! A night of surprises at The Good Food Guide Awards

Well, PDC and I sit here with proud smiles as I report on the excitement of The Age Good Food Guide Awards.

A few new awards and a couple of shocks...

2009 Awards
Restaurant of the Year - Attica (a fantastic result, well done!)
Best New Restaurant - Bistro Guillaume
Chef of the Year - Frank Camorra, MoVida
Young Chef of the Year - (two winners this year) Justin Wise, The Press Club and Christopher Donnellan, The Lake House
Service Excellence Award - Martin Fairhurst, The Lake House
Professional Excellence Award - Will Studd, -Cheese Campaigner (nice title!)
Outstanding Achievement Award - Con Christopoulos
Dish of the Year - Smoked trout broth, Attica (not too far removed from the pork broth that I loved there)
Country Restaurant of the Year - Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld
**Best New Country Restaurant - Tea Rooms of Yarck
**Winery Restaurant of the Year - Giant Steps (in the Yarra Valley)
Wine List of the Year - Circa, the Prince (again, congrats!)
Best Short Wine List - Ten Minutes by Tractor
**Bacchus (Don Levy Fitzpatrick) Award - Bar Lourinha
Website of the Year - Three, One, Two
Wine Service Award - Rocco Esposito, Wardens in Beechworh
**Interior Design - Giuseppe, Arnaldo and Sons (my friend was right, it is really amazing)


2008 Multiple hats of interest…
Three Hats
Jacques Reymond and Vue de Monde is back sharing the top pinnacle

Two Hats
Verge (back up again) MoVida (up from '07), Bistro Guillaume (a new entrant from across the boarder), Royal Mail Hotel (country section)

Up and Down
The Press Club - fallen a little from two hats, Chef and New Restaurant of the year in '08 to one hat... ouch

Well, I heard whispers that it was all about demotions this year, these places lost their only hat -
The Argo, Da Noi (nice dig!), Delizia Cucina, Fenix (watch for Ray next year), France Soir (ouch!), The Graham, Hotel Lincoin, Idea..., Maisonette, Maris, Middle Brighton Baths, Mirka (I told you it wasn't all that), Punch Lane (a sad loss), Shiranui

Controversy and surprises…
Taxi Dining room - did I miss it or did they lose two hats?? :O
Becco - 'The Boys' have had it good for a while, and now the playing field is levelled ;)
France Soir - hatless after such a long service to Melbourne

**New awards this year

Thoughts on the results??? Please join in...

12.30am Opps correction... Sorry to the Taxi team, as corrected by Niki, Taxi still has their two hats. Perhaps it was Shaun Micallefs speed to announce the winners or the bottle of Tuscan red in front of me, but I missed it and their hat status remains unchanged. Cheers and sorry!! Jack

Good Food Guide Awards tonight

Live streaming from The Age is just about to start.

So who wins what?

I'll be watching at home tonight and will report back with winners once the show is over.

Bon appetite...

The Good Food Guide Awards

The Age, Good Food Guide Awards were held tonight, the guide book will be available tomorrow and as usual I’m sure there will be feature articles in Epicure in the morning… but here is the low-down now!!!
(Sorry it could have been 3 hours ago but a Wagyu burger and celebratory glass of champagne at the Restaurant of the Year was too tempting...)

2008 Awards
Restaurant of the Year - Rockpool, Bar and Grill
Best New Restaurant - The Press Club
Chef of the Year - George Calombaris, The Press Club
Young Chef of the Year - Adam D'Sylva, Pearl
Service Excellence Award - Ari Vlassopoulos, Pearl
Professional Excellence Award - Ronnie di Stasio, Cafe di Stasio
Outstanding Achievement Award - Jacques Reymond, of ...
Dish of the Year - Confit Apple and burnt butter icecream, Three, one, two

Country Restaurant of the Year - Range
Wine List of the Year - Circa, the Prince
Best Short Wine List - Bar Lourinha

New Awards
Website of the Year - Gingerboy
Sommelier of the Year - Dan Simms, Fifteen

2008 Multiple hats of interest…
Three Hats
Jacques Reymond

Two Hats
Vue De Monde (down from '07)
Matteos (up from '07)
Attica (up from '07)

Up and Down
Tempura Hajime - one hat (as reviewed here when you could still easily get a table)
The Court House -one hat (down from '07)
Verge - one hat (down from '07)

Fun of the night
The offical host was actually funny... and kept a easily rowdy crowd interested

Controversy of the night
Vue losing a hat, and the crowd 'oohhing' with surprise when they were awarded two hats

Surprises…
Its too late in the evening to make political comments, but no big surprises for me.
Is there anything that surprises you?
Jack