20 TOP VICTORIAN FOODIE FACTS AND FIGURES…
Regularly voted one of the world’s most liveable cities, Melbourne is also known as the culinary epicentre of Australia while Victoria is its food bowl. The depth, diversity and innovation of Melbourne and Victoria’s food scene go well beyond numbers, but here are a few facts and figures to explain some of Victoria’s love affair with food.
1. Melbourne has over 3,500 restaurants that offer cuisines from at least 70 countries around the world.
2. Ben Shewry’s Attica (Ripponlea, Melbourne) is Australasia’s number one restaurant, ranking 32nd on the 2014 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
3. Melbourne will be the first Australian city to welcome a Michelin Star awarded restaurant with the highly anticipated arrival of Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck early 2015.
4. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is the largest of its kind in the world with more than 200 events attracting around 300,000 people annually.
5. The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is the longest running event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and widely regarded as one of the best in the world.
6. Victoria is Australia’s most bountiful food bowl producing over a quarter of Australia’s food exports, generating approximately $9.4 billion in 2012-2013.
7. Home to more than 850 wineries, Victoria boasts more wine producers than any other state in Australia.
8. Diversity is the key to Victoria’s wine industry: the State comprises 21 different wine regions which produce a wide range of varietals and styles.
9. Australia’s home of beer, Victoria boasts at least 29 craft breweries, much more than any other State in Australia.
10. Melbourne’s love of coffee just keeps growing – the volume of coffee beans imported from around the globe from the Port of Melbourne has increased by around 780% over the past decade.
11. Melbourne has the World’s Best Coffee, says one of the world’s leading travel websites, booking.com.
12. The Port of Melbourne handles 30 tonnes of coffee beans on average, each day. This makes the equivalent of 3 million cups of coffee every day – that’s enough to give every metropolitan Melburnian a daily coffee fix.
13. Fitzroy cocktail bar Black Pearl was the only Australian bar to be nominated for Best Cocktail Bar and Best Cocktail Menu in 2013 as part of America’s prestigious Spirited Awards.
14. Melbourne’s Anthony Femia from Spring Street Grocer ranked fourth in the 2013 World Contest of the Best Cheesemonger Competition and was the only Australian to make the top ten.
15. Fifty genuine farmers markets are held across Victoria with an estimated 2000 farmers selling their produce direct to the consumer each month.
16. Victoria accounts for 85% of the value of Australia’s dairy exports with nearly 2 million dairy cattle providing dairy products for almost 100 countries.
17. Victorian-grown almonds in the State’s Sunraysia district are one of the biggest success stories in Australian horticulture.
18. The World’s Best Pizza is also in Melbourne, made by local pizza maker Johnny Di Francesco of 400 Gradi, according to the World Pizza Championships recently held in Italy.
19. USA’s leading lifestyle magazine, AFAR, summed it up in the recent May edition of the magazine – ‘Melbourne is experiencing a culinary moment’.
20. World renowned UK chef Heston Blumenthal also rates the city. He is temporarily relocating his three Michelin starred restaurant The Fat Duck to Crown Melbourne for a six month period from February 2015 before installing the more permanent, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. This will be the experimental chef’s only restaurant outside of the UK.
Visit www.piecesofvictoria.com/eatdrinkvictoria for more information about Victoria’s food and wine.
CONTACT: ZOE SHURGOLD 0415 254 418 OR