German, Austrian, Swiss (Sydney)

Living in Sydney, I like winter. I look forward to a few months each year where I can wrap up in colourful scarves, pull on a large coat and enjoy the smell of wood fires – and some hearty northern European fare. When the mercury starts to dip, I crave German food and here’s where […]

Top 5 Cheese Dishes

  I love cheese in all its milky goodness: soft and hard, goat and cow (sheep and buffalo too), mild and pungent, mouldy and crumbly, blue and white. I love it in salads, souffles, fondue, scraped off a wheel of raclette onto boiled potatoes, or just a perfectly ripe chunk on a piece of excellent […]

Indian Restaurants

The spice-rich food of the Indian subcontinent (from Pakistan to Sri Lanka) has long been a takeaway mainstay. While repetitive menus of samosas, butter chicken and beef vindaloo haven’t done this rich cuisine any favours, authentic ‘cheap & cheerful’ restaurants in suburbs with large Indian populations (such as Harris Park) set the record straight, as […]

Malaysian Restaurants (Sydney)

I love Malaysian food – earthy curries, flaky roti, chewy noodles, rich coconut milk, great ways with seafood, chicken and beef … and that’s before we even start talking about pork trotters, durian and other things not quite to my taste, but which my husband, Franz, adores! It’s the original multi-cultural cooking, with its blend […]

Top 5 Private Dining Rooms (PDRs)

Some of my best times have been sharing a meal with friends tucked away in a private dining room in one of my favourite restaurants. There’s something special about gathering in a space away from everyone else, you can laugh a little louder, eat and drink with more abandon, and carry on almost as you […]

Sydney (city guide)

I’m a Sydney girl born and bred, and I love showing visitors this beautiful city I call home. Knowing how much Sydney has to offer, I find it challenging to view my hometown through the eyes of a visitor … to think about what I would see and do if I was only here for […]

Top 5 Wine & Food Matches

I love food – and I love wine. But best of all I love it when the two come together in a marriage that is greater than the sum of its parts … when each lifts the other to new heights. And I love eating in restaurants where the staff know their stuff well enough […]

Top 5 Date Night Ideas

Remember when you first started dating your partner? Going out of your way to think of special things to do together that would surprise and delight the other? I used to think ‘date night’ was a great idea for couples busy with kids, who needed to set time aside for each other – and so […]

Top 5 Gueridon in Sydney

I like a bit of theatre with my food – and it doesn’t get much more theatrical than gueridon, the art of finishing and plating dishes tableside! Crêpes Suzette and steak Diane come immediately to mind, but there are many other possibilities as these restaurants show. I’m pleased to see a bit of a gueridon […]

Top 5 Lunch with a View

I’ve been accused of featuring the eastern suburbs too heavily, but I can’t help it if there’s a concentration of great eats (and drinks) in that part of town. So I’m delighted to be celebrating something that the northside (my home turf) has in abundance – great eats with great views! Time to enjoy a […]

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