In gustatory terms it was the best of decades, it was the worst of decades, but one thing’s for sure: the 2010s were anything but boring. They came in with sous-vide and left smoking up a storm, and in between offered evolution and devolution in equal measures. Here are the 10 dishes that best defined the decade in Australian food.
Attica’s potato cooked in the earth in which it was grown
This was the decade in which the veg became hero, and the charge was led by Attica, the 20 teens’ hero Australian restaurant. Making its debut in 2009 and becoming the breakout star of 2010, the “potato cooked in the earth in which it was grown”, didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. But this was a special spud, one that arrived asking the hard questions. Had we ever looked at a potato before – ever really took the time to stare one unflinchingly in the face, to appreciate it beyond its quotidian chipping capacity? Chefs everywhere followed suit and let vegetables don their super-capes, including Dan Hunter of Brae, whose fried parsnip skin with an apple and parsnip mousse led the veg-as-dessert splinter-trend.
Quay’s snow egg
For a certain well-heeled diner, eating at Quay and enjoying its show-stopper snow egg finale was already a Sydney must-do, like visiting Bondi Beach or climbing the Harbour Bridge. But after it featured on the second season finale of MasterChef in the show’s 2010 glory days (one of the most-watched moments in Australian television with 3.9 million viewers), it became the snow egg of the people, with the phone ringing off the hook and the restaurant fielding requests for takeaways. As many cult dishes do, it became something of an albatross for chef Peter Gilmore, who iced the snow egg when Quay was rebooted in 2018.
Momofuku Seiōbo’s pork bun
In 2011 Sydney became the first location outside New York for super-chef David Chang to plant his flag. It was like the city had been anointed head prefect. He loved us! And we loved him, gleefully gobbling the signature steamed pork buns after winning a reservation lottery that made TattsLotto look easy. It wasn’t only the glitter of The Chang that made the decade sparkle, but a broader culinary cultural cringe thing that saw massive queues outside Melbourne’s Tim Ho Wan when it opened in 2016 – not to mention the hysteria over imports such as Krispy Kreme (first opened in Sydney in 2003) and the new, end-of-decade excitement (ahem) about the imminent rollout of US chain Taco Bell.
Ms.G’s Stoner’s Delight
It was a moment of pure OTT at 2011 newcomer Ms.G’s when a young gun chef named Dan Hong floated his explosion-in-a-lolly-shop phantasmagoria of banana ice-cream, rice bubbles, chocolate, pretzels, peanut brittle and marshmallow. But it was much more than type-2 diabetes in a bowl; the Stoner’s Delight was a floating signifier for a new generation of cheeky young chefs breaking out their best share-house moves and making food that spoke to their fun-loving contemporaries. A thousand imitative flowers bloomed in the unabashed pursuit of the millennial discretionary dollar; in a not-unrelated trend, swearing on menus (including a plethora of “really f***ing hot” curries) became de rigueur.
The Chur Burger
What’s a chef to do when fire guts his aspirational fine diner? Why, start a burger bar, of course. Little did Warren Turnbull know in 2013 when he started Chur Burger as a pop-up out of the ashes of Sydney’s Albion Street Kitchen that he’d have queues down the street and spark a bona fide burger bar trend. High went low when “name” chefs opened their own diffusion lines, from Neil Perry and Shannon Bennett following suit with burgers to George Calombaris and Shane Delia doing the same for souvlaki and kebabs, respectively. As the saying goes, feed the rich, go home poor; feed the poor, go home rich.
The Freakshake
Could anyone standing on the precipice of the new decade have predicted something like the Freakshake? The product of the hospitality industry’s horizontal lambada with social media, this aptly-named abomination invented by Canberra cafe Patissez in 2015 was a milkshake with added artillery in the form of pretzels, chocolate bits, marshmallow and whatever else happened to be close to hand in the kitchen. It went viral, and global, then sputtered out, but not without spawning endless imitators gurning for their close-up on Instagram. The only conclusion to draw from this sorry episode is that a Freakshake is much like a tree falling in a forest: if no one saw you drink it, you didn’t drink one.
Matcha Mylkbar’s vegan poached eggs
It was a decade in which vegans went from punchline to a food force to be reckoned with. Figures are rubbery – best estimates say around half a million Australians now follow a plant-based diet – but the unavoidable environmental and ethical implications have seen all-vegan cafes and restaurants evolve from cheesecloth redoubts to hip havens in a tight embrace with the shiny-haired “wellness” movement. Cue Melbourne’s Matcha Mylkbar which launched to insta-acclaim in 2016 with its poached eggs with whites made from coconut and almond milk and yolks of linseed protein and sweet potato. They’re similar in texture to a real poached egg. As for taste: close your eyes and think of Matcha Mylkbar fan Liam Hemsworth.
Saint Peter’s albacore eye chip
We’re calling it: Josh Niland was the 2010’s most important chef, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact he debuted his Sydney restaurant Saint Peter in 2016. The epoch-changing nature of the waste-not philosophy, transplanted to an all-seafood menu, is difficult to underplay. Niland’s fin-to-gill ethos, epitomising the new approach to sustainability, saw wonders such as the albacore eye chip, the sea urchin on crumpet and deep-fried mulloway scales on salt-baked pumpkin. No flash in the pan, the “Josh Niland effect” is the new normal.
Avocado on toast
Has a breakfast staple ever sparked macro-economic debate like the humble avo on toast? Battle lines were drawn between boomers and millennials in 2016 when demographer Bernard Salt used smashed avo as a symbol of all that was wrong with young people’s (alleged) spendthrift culture. The smashed avocado generation – like the lost generation, only with more vitamin C – were essentially eating their home deposits, he lectured, prompting a plethora of retaliatory think pieces pointing out that the wholesale inequities of house prices transcended the retail cost of breakfasting out. In cafes across the nation, avocado on toast simply shrugged and got on with being the brunch item du jour.
Sunda’s roti with Vegemite curry
The cheeky-proud Aussie-fication of cuisine was a decade-long nostalgia trip, kicking off with the widescale pimping of the Streets ice-cream back-catalogue (the Golden Gaytime, Viennetta, Magnum and Splice were all gussied up for their restaurant debuts). Then along came the Vegemite reclamation movement, with chefs such as Attica’s Ben Shewry and Anchovy’s Thi Li taking the breakfast spread of champions as their inspiration. The best in show arrived in 2018, when Khanh Nguyen at Melbourne’s hot-stuff new arrival Sunda teamed a Vegemite-infused curry sauce with buttery pull-apart roti, kicking hackneyed notions of “fusion” to the kerb.
