Modern Australian cuisine

An iconic Modern Australian dish: Confit of Tasmanian Ocean Trout at Tetsuya's, Sydney

Modern Australian cuisine, also known as Mod Oz or contemporary Australian cuisine, is the fusion cuisine characteristic to Australia.

History

Australian cuisine is derived from the tastes of immigrant settlers to Australia and the produce they have introduced to the continent, combined with the produce indigenous to Australia. The British colonial period established a strong base of interest in Anglo-Celtic style recipes and methods. Subsequent waves of multicultural immigration, with a majority drawn from Asia and the Mediterranean region, and the strong, sophisticated food cultures these ethnic communities have brought with them influenced the development of Australian cuisine.

Arguably the first Modern Australian restaurant was Sydney's Bayswater Brasserie (est. 1982), which offered Mediterranean dishes with Asian and Middle Eastern influences and "showed Sydney [...] that food can be adventurous without being expensive".^[1] The term itself was first used in print in the 1993 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide,^[1][2] which placed 34 restaurants under this heading, and was quickly adopted to describe the burgeoning food scene in Sydney in the 1990s.^[3] Leading exponents of the style include Tetsuya Wakuda , Neil Perry and Peter Gilmore.^[4]

As of 2014, the term is considered somewhat dated, with many restaurants preferring to call their style "contemporary Australian cuisine" instead.^[5]

Notable Modern Australian restaurants

• Rockpool, Sydney^[6]
• Taxi Dining Room, Melbourne^[7]
• Tetsuya's, Sydney
• Quay, Sydney

See also

• Australian cuisine
• Fusion cuisine

References