Noosa festival spreads its wings

Should Esperanto be the official language of Noosa's next Food and Wine Festival?

A line-up of noteworthy chefs from the Old World, the New and Asia will participate in the increasingly popular festival next May, building on the established festival benchmark of the S. Pellegrino World's Best Restaurants list. Should make kitchen conversations interesting. Particularly interesting is the list of those who haven't been to Noosa before: David Kinch, from Manresa in California; Mauro Colagreco, from Mirazur, in Menton, France; and Australia's Peter Gilmore of Quay in Sydney. The rest are what you might call repeat offenders: Andre Chiang (Restaurant Andre, Singapore); Carlo Cracco (Cracco, Milan); Yoshihiro Narisawa (Les Creations des Narisawa, Tokyo); Ben Shewry (Attica, Melbourne); Mark Best (Marque, Sydney); David Thompson (Nahm, Bangkok) and Tetsuya Wakuda (Waku Ghin, Singapore). All are included in the current and controversial S. Pellegrino Top 100 list. Among various duties for the lads (sadly, they are all lads) is a concert of "edible music" with canapes matched to music matched to demonstrations on stage with orchestra. "This will be a world first, I promise," says festival director Jim Berardo. If previous experience is any guide, there are plenty of more accessible opps to meet and mingle with the stars.

The impressive line-up of chefs appearing at the Noosa Food and Wine Festival in May includes (from left) Peter Gilmore, David Thompson, Mark Best and Mauro Colagreco

Big man (in every sense) Marco Pierre White is back in Australia recording the latest MasterChef franchise, The Professionals. He certainly has a presence on set, as First Bite witnessed last week. Or maybe he was just grumpy after walking out of a Melbourne Italian in a fit of expletives the day before. Not using Knorr bouillon cubes, probably.

From the only-in-the-US file comes news that Martha Stewart is exec producing a comedy for Fox about ... herself. The Tao of Martha has been described as "in the vein of (film) Julie & Julia." The plot, apparently, is something like: lead character decides to become a better role model for her daughter and write a book about changing her life according to the "teachings of Martha Stewart". Can't wait.

The accountant-turned-chef who quite possibly launched the gastropub concept in Melbourne back in the 1990s at Hotel Spencer, Peter McLeod, is back cooking in the city again. It has been many years since the Spencer won hearts and critical accolades, and McLeod has been living in the country a fair while since, but he's back at Collingwood's Carringbush Hotel, in the heart of Squizzy Taylor territory. Good news.

Ultimate foodie collectible for 2012? It has to be a limited edition can of Pepsi with Ferran Adria's face emblazoned on it. Pepsi has released a six-pack of cans to coincide with a Madrid congress on "brilliant minds". The other five are leaders in fields as diverse as paleontology and cartoon design. The limited edition set of cans is to be raffled on Twitter.

"We just couldn't afford to keep going. It got to a ridiculous point." And that's how interior designer-turned-restaurateur Emma O'Mara summed up the failed experiment that was Melbourne's Brix Bistrot, which she and husband Keir Vaughan have been forced to close. The tale of the small but delicious Fitzroy restaurant is a salutary one, having opened last year to strong critical approval and excellent numbers. But internal issues with chefs departing forced the closure of the restaurant for a protracted period early in the year, a break O'Mara says they never really recovered from. "We just never got back on our feet after the closing," she says "and it becomes pretty simple in the end." The couple, whose love of food, wine and design had made the place special, simply couldn't afford to prop the business up any longer. Replacement chef Ashly Hicks, who came to Melbourne from Brisbane's failed Buffalo Club, was one casualty. He's helping out at Circa right now but says next year's open, possibly to opportunities overseas. "I'm a free agent right now," says the talented chef.

Meantime, the chef who launched The Brix to acclaim (see above), Joel Alderson, is working behind the scenes at Fitzroy's Builders Arms/Moon Under Water, which may help explain the food's excellence right now. Alderson has been consulting to the Windsor Hotel's Wallis & Ed dining room and is believed to be talking to the Windsor's owners, the Halim Group, about a project.

There was another vote of significance in the US last week. Californians effectively voted against the right to make an informed decision on the food they eat when they voted "no" to Proposition 37 which would have made labelling of food containing genetically modified ingredients compulsory. It has been reported in the US that Monsanto contributed more than $US8 million ($7.7m) to the "no" campaign.

Source: The Australian, 13 November 2012