The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania has been named Restaurant of the Year at the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards. It is the first time in the event’s 45-year history that a restaurant from the island state has won the top award.
Located in the Derwent Valley on the site of a former psychiatric hospital, New Norfolk restaurant is known for its hyper-seasonal, farm-to-table approach, using ingredients from the garden and surrounding area, as well as locally made charcuterie, cheeses and ferments.
Co-founder Séverine Demanet said she was “shocked” when she received the award at the ceremony in Sydney on Monday evening. “We weren’t expecting this at all.”
Demanet founded the original Agrarian Kitchen cooking school and farm in 2008 with her husband, chef Rodney Dunn. Over the years, it has evolved into the current concept: a regional restaurant, kiosk, garden and cooking school, about 30 minutes’ drive northwest of Hobart.
Dunn said it was “amazing” to even be invited to the awards ceremony. “I thought, how can a small restaurant in Tasmania win the title of Gourmet Traveller Restaurant of the Year?”
Demanet acknowledged that her success comes at a difficult economic time for the Australian restaurant industry. “I think I take my hat off to all the restaurants that are actually still around today, because it’s really tough at the moment.”
Joanna Hunkin, editor of Gourmet Traveller, said cost of living pressures were placing an additional burden on restaurant operators.
She said financially strapped customers expect a lot from the restaurants they visit. “They don’t give you a free pass, they demand higher standards from you,” she said.
Chef Mischa Tropp was named Best New Talent for Toddy Shop, his first Kerala restaurant in Melbourne. After hosting a series of pop-up events serving dishes influenced by his maternal heritage, the chef is opening his 20-seat restaurant in Fitzroy in late 2023. “I’d rather cook curries than win awards,” joked Tropp as he accepted his award.
Tropp said restaurant awards tend to go to “upscale” establishments rather than simple restaurants that showcase the coconut-spiced dishes of the southern state of Kerala.
“When most people think of Indian food, they want two things: butter chicken and naan … and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Tropp said.
However, he says there is a growing appetite for regional Indian cuisine in Melbourne’s Indian community and beyond. “There’s an older generation who probably know South Indian food because they were hippies once,” he said.
Tropp’s goal is to present Keralan cuisine to as many guests as possible. Sometimes he sees mostly Indian faces in the restaurant, but other times he sees a mix of guests from different backgrounds. “But it’s great because you can’t have every single person in the restaurant black,” he says. “We’re in Fitzroy. This is not a black neighborhood.”
The Ayubi family of Parwana Afghan Kitchen in Adelaide received the award for outstanding service to hospitality. The family fled Kabul in 1985, at the height of the Cold War, and opened Parwana in 2009. The colourful, tiled restaurant on the edge of central Adelaide is driven by matriarch Farida’s vision to honour and share the cuisine of her homeland.
In addition to serving Kabuli Palaw (Afghan-style rice) and Bolani (chive-stuffed flatbreads), the restaurant also hosts fundraisers for charities in Afghanistan.
Accepting the award, Farida’s daughter Durkhanai said, “When my mother and father made the decision to completely turn their lives around and leave everything they knew behind, … food was the feeling of home that we took with us.”
The food, she says, became the family’s “irrepressible response” to the stories of war, misery and loss commonly told about Afghanistan.
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“It became our way of telling our own story through our own eyes, our own hands… When people come to Parwana, we want them to feel what it should be like to dine with your loved ones… each dumpling is folded with love and care according to traditional knowledge that is thousands of years old.”
Parwana, which means “butterfly” in Dari, is named after one of Farida’s favorite restaurants in her hometown.
“There was a beautiful woman with her son, they ran the restaurant and the food was so incredible… like your grandmother was cooking for you. My husband and I always went there for lunch,” said Farida.
It was a double win for Pasi Petänen, who was named Chef of the Year, while his Sydney restaurant Cafe Paci took home the New South Wales Restaurant of the Year award.
In Victoria, Chauncy in Heathcote took home the title of Best Restaurant, Lake House in Daylesford was named an Icon by readers and Vue de Monde in Melbourne was named the state’s Best Restaurant.
In Brisbane, chef and restaurant owner Sarah Baldwin of 10-seat restaurant Joy was named Restaurant Personality of the Year.
The winners of the Gourmet Traveller 2024 Restaurant Award
Restaurant of the Year
The Agrarian Kitchen, New Norfolk, Tasmania
State winner
Pilot, Canberra, ACT
Café Paci, Sydney, NSW
Labart Restaurant, Burleigh Heads, Queensland
Maxwell Restaurant, McLaren Vale, South Australia
The Agrarian Kitchen, New Norfolk, Tasmania
Vue de Monde, Melbourne, Victoria
Casa, Perth, Western Australia
Best new restaurant
King Clarence, Sydney, NSW
Chef of the Year
Pasi Petänen, Café Paci, Sydney, NSW
The best new talents
Mischa Tropp, Toddy Shop, Melbourne, Victoria
Restaurant personality of the year
Sarah Baldwin, Joy, Brisbane, Queensland
The best restaurants at your destination
Chauncy, Heathcote, Victoria
Wine Bar of the Year
South West Wine Shop, Busselton, WA
Outstanding contribution to hospitality
The Ayubi Family, Parwana Afghan Kitchen, Adelaide, SA
Award for Readers’ Choice Icons
Lakeside House, Daylesford, Victoria
Yvonne C Lam is a former digital editor at Gourmet Traveller.
