My Kingdom For A Hat: Good Food Guide 2024 Pt 1

On why “The Hats” actually matter, & the nature of criticism

For the longest time, I used to say my favourite day was Tuesday. Growing up on the outer rim of Melbourne suburbia, I longed for the hustle and bustle of the cooking shows I would obsessively watch, always exploring exotic locations and urban sprawls. Late on Friday evenings on SBS, the first run of Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour” gave me a window to the world, episodes of Ming Tsai’s “Simply Ming'' introducing me to the sort of foreign ingredients one simply couldn’t find in Berwick. Then, the chaotic dreamscape that was Iron Chef, the marvellous creativity and ineffable Japanishness of the presentation planting seeds of interest that have framed my adulthood. I was 12 and obsessed with food, and on Friday nights the window opened, but on Tuesdays, I could reach through and taste it.

Picture it now; an otherwise normal, affable 12 year old boy, who every Tuesday lunchtime would excuse himself from the kick-to-kick and social posturing of the schoolyard, to seconder himself away in the school library. There, crisp copies of the Tuesday Age would be waiting for me, within its pages the fabled liftout over which I would plan my week. Epicure, since renamed Good Food; all the comings and goings, controversies and excitement of the Melbourne food industry, the urban adventures and colour I longed to experience and be a part of, spread across 6-8 glorious ages. 

I can still vividly picture the layout. The news and announcements. The weekly listing of Cafe Di Stasio’s discount lunch menu. The since-cancelled John Lethlean’s delightfully scathing feature reviews, Matt Preston in all his pre-masterchef Oscar Wilde pomp, espousing the virtues of the weird and wonderful lesser known Melbourne eateries. The two were glorious counterparts, Lethlean in particular a fearless and at times cruel critic. I’d even revel in the sheer sneer of Lethlean’s Herald Sun counterpart Stephen Downes, who seemed perpetually uncomfortable, and had a hilarious penchant for deducting two points for paper napkins. I’ll never forget the time Jamie Oliver’s Melbourne outpost of social enterprise restaurant Fifteen, now home to Phillipe Mouchel, barred Downes from entering, and the outrage that ensued. Or, back to The Age, the day I first read that Neil Perry, whose food I dreamed of travelling to Sydney to sample, had forged a relationship with Crown Casino, and was coming to Melbourne. To some teenagers, winning a local football flag or sharing a fleeting kiss with their paramour at a Blue Light Disco was the peak of their existence. For me, it was learning I could finally sample Perry’s Four Tastes Of The Sea. In hindsight, I was a bit tragic.

The Tuesday framework followed me into adulthood, as I began a career in hospitality. Monday and Tuesday was the mandated hospo weekend, and a coffee, The Age and Cheap Tuesday at the Jam Factory was about as good as life got. As the years rolled on, through rebrands, new reviewers, and fluctuations in my regard for the section, this Tuesday ritual never waivered. If it’s Tuesday and I’m in Melbourne, I read Good Food, even if just a cursory glance. It’s the gravitational base that informs my connection to my city, though at times I’m now in a position to be ahead of the curb as it relates to Melbourne restaurant gossip. This past year, as my venue Bureau started to gain traction, I found myself mentioned in Good Food for the first time. It was an incredible thrill, the sort of “full circle” moment a strange teenager scouring through a newspaper alone in a library at lunchtime could be proud of.

If Good Food Tuesday was a ritual, the release of the annual Good Food Guide was my Super Bowl. I would purchase the guide every year on release day, eagerly absorbing every page. I would go through and highlight restaurants into categories; green marker for restaurants I’ve tried, yellow for restaurants I intended to in the future. The awarding, and even more enticingly, the revoking of “hats” from restaurants was a momentous event, and something that heavily influenced where I would choose to visit and spend my meagre income. In more recent years, after a short lifetime spent managing venues and dealing with customers, I’ve come to understand that scoring a dining experience can be a fraught exercise. There are infinitesimal factors that can negatively or positively affect one’s experience, often beyond the control of the staff, that can render criticism arbitrary, but the long-held creed of The Guide is about as close to a fair grading system as I’ve come across. 

Venues are reviewed multiple times over varying services, under nom-de-plumes, each time with the same criteria on the basis of food, service, setting and value for money. To me, one hat indicated an elevated and considered offering, the sort of place I’d book for a special date and trust I’d receive something tasty, and have a good time. Two hats represented something a little more surprising, a hint of luxury and exploration to the experience. Three hats, always awarded judiciously, represented the peak of the form, a blow-off-the-doors hedonistic jungle voyage. Once a year, an anniversary or birthday, always with champagne, every course documented for prosperity on my phone camera, every service gesture noted. An annual reminder that life is for living, and occasionally you need to spend a whole week’s wages on lunch, lest we cede into the drudgery of those to whom food is but a means to fuel ourselves, as opposed to the chief reason to exist. 

Other pantheons of criticism, such as the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards, represented a snapshot of now, better capturing the zeitgeist and trends of the moment, but the path to a hat, and retaining one, was a much more arduous journey. The hats better reflect the seriousness of the endeavour at the heart of the business; is it a lifelong pursuit, a love letter to hospitality, and a place where genuine care and love are displayed through the act of feeding someone? Or is the restaurant perhaps concept above conviction, conceived via committee, and delivered to the specs of a brand strategist’s pitch deck? Both can be true, but rarely, and it will be the restaurants who make it their mission to share love through food and service that survive and thrive in Melbourne. This is borne out in consistency, and that is what hats measure.

Recently, the addition of the “critic’s pick” grading to the guide has given Good Food the scope to highlight venues that don’t strive for the formal excellence of hatted venues. Or, to put it another way, whose cuisines represent cultures in which pristine tablecloths and artisan sparkling water are not required. The equivalent of the Michelin guide’s Bib Gourmand award (which represents value for money), such awards bring to the fore an ugly discussion about price as a virtue, and why some things are deemed “hat worthy” and others may fall into the “best cheap eats” category. The excellent Ca Com on Bridge Road, Richmond is such a place. A pandemic-era pivot from the lauded Anchovy team, Ca Com and its Laotian-style banh mi has fast become an institution, purveying truly some most delicious sandwiches I have ever had. A chef’s eye to detail and elevated ingredients bring the classic banh mi to the realm of fine dining, but unless accompanied by the trappings of a comfortable European-style restaurant service, such a place could never hope to receive a “hat” from the guide. 

Who are we to judge whether or not a paper bag, a can of coke and a snowstorm of white bread crumbs is not the ideal delivery method for a meal, and not one superior to Winterhalter-polished glasses of Beaujolais and white china plates? While I’m sure many hardworking and wonderful people work there, a restaurant like Chris Lucas’s Society (recently demoted from two hats to one), is the inverse; a restaurant whose cultural resonance and ethos could be summed up as “expensive”. Such restaurants serve a purpose; they are places for special occasions, high-end Champagne house collaborations, and as a safe space for Bec Judd to flout lockdown restrictions. I have been to many such restaurants, and enjoyed myself, but can honestly tell you that a thoughtfully prepared sandwich in the street, delivered with love and integrity, is a more elevated dining experience than the relentless lashings of caviar, cutlery and butter sauces at a “fine diner”. The guide lists the difference between Ca Com and Society as one point, 14.5 to 15.5, but the gulf between hatless and hatted is vast, and can be measured in the complex cultural connotations of food. It’s one change I’d love to see the guide make; just as Michelin now awards stars to street food vendors, awarding hats to the venues like Ca Com, who circumvent traditional concepts of fine dining, would bring a greater sense of democracy to the hats.

Still, I love the guide, and the unique and constant pillar it has come to be in my life and in my city. In Part 2 of this piece I’ll look more closely at the 2024 edition, discuss the machinations behind those that gained and lost hats, and hand out the inaugural Bureau Awards.