The Time Out Food Awards are racing up fast for a big night of food and celebration at Pontoon St Kilda Beach on Monday September 18. The cream of Melbourne’s restaurant industry will be in attendance, vying for honours in 13 categories. Has your favourite restaurant, café or chef been nominated? Find out here.
The awards are one of Time Out’s favourite annual events, and the general public are invited along. A few tickets are still available, and here are five reasons why you should snap them up.
1 Find out Melbourne’s most popular restaurant, bakery and fast food outlet.
There are three People’s Choice Awards this year, as voted by readers on the Time Out website. They include Best Restaurant (presented by Beer the Beautiful Truth) – last year’s winner was vegan Latino restaurant Smith & Daughters. Plus, there are two new awards presented by Mastercard: Best Fast Food and Best Bakery.
2 See if your taste aligns with Time Out critics.
Time Out restaurant reviewers have visited all the nominee restaurants and cafés to make their expert judgements in ten categories. The top award, Restaurant of the Year, has ten nominees: Atlas, Attica, Cutler & Co, Embla, Igni, Kisume, Minamishima, Osteria Ilaria, Rick & Pinky and Tulum. Who will win, and do you think they deserve it?
3 Meet the celebrity chefs of tomorrow
Five up-and-coming chefs not yet in charge of a kitchen have been nominated for the Hot Talent Award, drawn from a poll of top Melbourne chefs. The winner is someone whom Time Out predicts will be a culinary star of tomorrow. The nominees are Joel Baylon at Grossi Florentino, Zack Furst at Ides, Kylie Millar at Attica, Charley Snadden-Wilson at Embla and Mario Tambajong at Coda.
4 Great value food and drinks
Your $70 ticket includes all the canapés you can eat plus bottomless drinks. Food highlights include seared kangaroo, sea bream tacos, hickory smoked brisket pastrami brioche and 12-hour braised spring lamb empanadas. Drinks will include Lanson Champagne, wines by Alpha Box & Dice, beer and more.
5 A beautiful venue overlooking St Kilda Beach
The awards take place at Pontoon, downstairs from Stokehouse, a stunningly renovated space with clear views of the entire beach and bay. It’s going to be an inspirational venue for all the suspense of the awards followed by partying into the night to sweet tunes spun by Flex Mami.
A few tickets are still available – be quick to get yours.