AWARDS show queenslanders have a wide dining choice
Courier Mail, 4 NOvember 2008
WHILE talk around the watercooler is all economic doom and gloom, the past year has been unremittingly positive for Queensland diners.
In the period when The Courier-Mail Queensland Food and Wine Guide 2009 was being put to bed alone, there were double the number of restaurant openings compared with this time last year.
Take note, was the message to restaurateurs from editor Lizzie Loel at last night's launch of the guide.
"The added competition means that standards across the board mean lift or sink," she says.
However, Loel says, there has been an increase in quality overall.
Not only has the quality of our dining possibilities increased, but so have the geographical ones.
"Dining 'zones' are no longer so defined. The CBD and Fortitude Valley are no longer the only places for upper-end dining - the burbs are groaning with great places: Gianni at Hamilton, the Gabba gained 1889 Enoteca, Paddington has just welcomed Iceworks and Peak Fine Dining."
As well as the new guns (many of whom just missed the deadline for a review), Loel commends the burgeoning bar scene with venues such as Buffalo Club, Ice Works, La Ruche, the new Lychee Lounge and Limes Hotel offering quality places to drop in for a few quiet ones or a decent meal.
In all, very few venues dropped their grading from last year, with a few, such as Pier Nine (due to close next month), Restaurant Lurleen's, Brent's Modern Dining, Mondo and Siggi's all gaining a coveted extra star.
A major complaint from diners has always been service standards, but it's rare to find it coupled with the name e'cco, where Tracey Rayner runs the front of house with infinite grace, earning her the award for Outstanding Service Award.
"Tracey Rayner makes service look easy - she personifies the best of front of house and has done so for many years," Loel says.
E'cco's owner Philip Johnson is also quick to praise Rayner: "I'm sure she has faults, but I don't know what they are."
Johnson cites Rayner's incredible memory, that allows her to take an order of a table of eight without a pen, her great people skills and staff management abilities.
"She leads from the front. There's nothing she'd ever ask anyone to do that she wouldn't do herself."
Rayner obviously loves what she does.
"It is stressful, but there's something about the rush of a busy dinner service and the adrenalin that often goes with it that keeps you going back for more,'' she says.
"It's hard to explain really, especially on days and nights when it seems like everything's going wrong, but you just pick yourself back up again and try to do it better the next day.''
So, what does the future hold for the Queensland restaurant scene?
Loel points out that while the perception of success in restaurants is that they have to be headlined by a celebrity chef with multiple TV roles and have multimillion-dollar fitouts, the dining public's desires are somewhat less exacting.
"Restaurants are about entertaining people and catering to their needs and desires and this is only occasionally desired in very formal style,'' she says.
"Most often people want great, fresh, hopefully local and seasonal produce prepared in a manner that is creative but approachable.
"They want to be treated in a friendly and professional manner, but without pretence.
"That's why Queensland has such a rosy future - because we don't take ourselves too seriously and our chefs put their customers, not their egos, first."
