The
Golden Plate Awards have been run and won for another year. This year saw the Geelong Otway region
compete in its ninth year of competition, the Ballarat Daylesford region
compete in its second year and the inaugural year of competition for the
Bendigo Central Victoria region.
The
Golden Plate Awards are an awards program for restaurants and cafes in these
Victorian regional areas. The program is
a rigorous and thorough review of the restaurants that enter, by a panel of
industry expert judges headed up by Rita Erlich. I am one of these judges.
I am
incredibly proud and honored to be one of the Golden Plate judges and I have
thoroughly enjoyed the role this year.
Besides from the obvious reasons of enjoyment of going to wonderful
restaurants and sampling their fabulous food, I am truly proud to be a part of
the Golden Plates because of what it does for regional dining and that it gives
the hospitality venues an opportunity to enhance their product from the
feedback they receive from us.
Being
as passionate as I am about regional food and produce, it’s fair to say that
via Golden Plate I have been exposed to more regional food experiences than
ever before and regional food is totally rocking it! Regional dining is going from strength to
strength by providing diners with more than a meal but an entire
experience. The quality and creativity
is incredible and something that regional Victoria can be extremely proud of.
This
year there were hundreds of entrants in the categories of fine dining, contempory
dining, casual dining, licensed and unlicensed café with each venue being
judged in two rounds by separate judges.
All aspects of the venue were judged from the food and wine to the
ambience and safety of the venue. Every
stone is unturned. Each region had their
category winners announced at a gala event in each region with this year seeing
for the first time a State Award for the best restaurant, best café and best
chef out of the three regions.
The
State Awards were announced last Monday night at the Geelong Otway region gala
night. It was an amazing night for the
industry and a very exciting night for the Bendigo Central Victoria region with
MASONS OF BENDIGO winning the State Award for Best Restaurant. This is an extraordinary achievement for
MASONS as they have only opened for business this year and it was the first
time the Golden Plate Awards have been in this region. It was totally well deserved and you can read
all about how fabulous they are here in my very first blog post where I
reviewed them. Congratulations MASONS OF
BENDIGO.
Check
out all the other winners at www.goldenplateawards.com.au
I
can’t wait for the 2013 Golden Plate Awards!
Note –
none of my blog reviews are restaurants that I have personally judged for the
Golden Plate Awards.
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