Melbourne Versus Sydney: The Culinary Edition

There’s nothing more mind-numbingly dull that the old Melbourne versus Sydney argument. Surely this was settled once and for all when yours truly left the Emerald City and moved south to inflict my particularly irritating personality on the good inhabitants of Melbourne after falling in love with the miserable city in 2005? I jest, I jest.

In any case, a bite-sized brouhaha has started over the Gourmet Traveller’s 2009 Restaurant Guide Awards, which apparently looked over Melbourne’s culinary brilliance in favour of Sydney-based dining establishments.

Melbourne’s long-standing reputation as a food and wine city was once again ignored in Gourmet Traveller’s 2009 Restaurant Guide Awards last night.

As was the case last year, Vue de monde was the only Melbourne restaurant to receive the top honors of a three-star rating.

In contrast, nine Sydney restaurants gained the equivalent accolade.

Controversial! As one might expect, Melbourne food critic Bob Hart is spitting gourmet duck fat-fried chips over the snubbing.

The implication that Melbourne’s dining scene can’t compete with Sydney’s has infuriated many in the Melbourne food community, including Herald Sun food writer Bob Hart.

“The Gourmet Traveller awards once again make nonsense of their claim to be a national poll,” Hart said. “They are Sydney-centric to the point of absurdity.”

I like to imagined Defamer Australia’s core readership to be made up of well-travelled food lovers, so over to you – is this a case of extreme pro-Sydney bias, or is Melbourne simply not good enough and desperately in need of someone (Gordan Ramsay, perhaps?) to scream “Put down that fucking latte, fucking stop your fucking crying, and fucking learn to run a fucking restaurant, you bastard!” in its direction?