Melbourne’s top food suburbs revealed
IT’S known for its leafy streets, art deco apartments and quaint village character, but Elwood has hardly been seen as a culinary hot spot — until now.
The beachside suburb rocketed 51 places in the latest survey of Melbourne’s foodie suburbs to join the top 20 for the first time at number 19.
Carlton is another culinary hot spot, cracking the top 10 suburbs at number 9, joining other inner-city suburbs St Kilda, Prahran and Fitzroy in the top 10.
Melbourne’s top 10 foodie suburbs.
Ringwood, surprisingly, is ranked just outside the top 10, jumping 30 places to 11 this year.
The results are part of the sixth annual Dimmi Australian Dining Index. Analysis of the restaurant booking service’s data reveals Melbourne foodies tend to live in the CBD, Burnley, South Yarra, Southbank and Prahran, but the highest-spending diners head out to eat in Hawthorn, where they drop an average of $60 a head on a meal.
Restaurateur Geoff Lindsay, whose Dandelion restaurant has operated in Elwood since 2011, said the suburb had many independent food traders all catering for increasingly discerning local customers.
“Ormond Rd in general is more cafe and bar driven, a trend seen everywhere in Melbourne. We cook for a lot of families, foodies and local Elwood residents, not so much of the corporates and business lunches,” he said.
Melbourne CBD remains the number one postcode for dining, which can be attributed in part to the increase in corporate dining in the past year. There has been a 41 per cent increase in online bookings through Dimmi from its top 10 corporate accounts over the past 12 months, reflecting a renewed appetite for corporate entertaining.
After Hawthorn, Balaclava and South Yarra residents are Melbourne’s highest-spending diners, with the average spend increasing 5.6 per cent, 3 per cent and 13.3 per cent respectively.
Other suburbs where foodies are happy to spend cash on dining out include Caulfield East (ranked 8), Northcote (7) and Burnley (5).
Michelle Rogerson, whose Ocha restaurant has been in the Hawthorn area for two decades, said she wasn’t surprised by the finding Hawthorn foodies spend up big.
“We generally have an older clientele, who are more interested in quality than cost. We have regulars who have a standing reservation every fortnight, sometimes more,” she said.
“But we’re also getting people travelling much further to come to us. We used to be much more a local restaurant.”
Overall, the average spend in Victoria increased 2.55 per cent to $53.85, the highest year-on-year increase of any state.
Dimmi chief executive Stevan Premutico said this was a trend reflected across the country.
“People are eating out less but spending more. In Melbourne lots of premium restaurants are dropping down a level and the low tier are stepping up so we are seeing a big clash in the middle of the market,” he said. “Great food, great experiences, at super-competitive prices. It’s good for consumers, less good for operators.”
But while we’re spending more on average, our satisfaction levels have gone down, which Mr Premutico said was due to the influence of cooking shows on television.
“Shows like MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules make us all foodies and critics, and we’re becoming more critical of our restaurant experiences as a result. But if it helps make the industry better then that’s great for everyone.
Source: Herald Sun, Dan Stock, 19th August 2015
Originally published as: Melbourne’s top food suburbs revealed
