Since The Sydney Morning Herald kick-started Good Food Month in 1998, Sydney has experienced a golden age of food, restaurants and hospitality. While the fruits of Good Food Month shine today – and into the future – with events such as the perennially popular Night Noodle Markets, Sydney has put itself on the global food map with a combination of excellence and innovation – and perhaps the odd fad and brain fade. Here are 20 memorable moments in the two decades since the inaugural Good Food Month.
Sydney was well acquainted with good pizza. There was a spell in the 1990s when we got a little “designer” with our toppings, horrifying Italian tourists with exotic additions such as salmon, lamb and rocket and tandoori chicken. But if you went looking, namely in Sydney’s inner-west, there was good stuff to be found. But the opening of Via Napoli, on Sydney’s north shore, in late 2011, proved a turning point. Authentic Naples-style pizza had broken the shackles of Sydney’s Italian community. Now it’s hard to find a pocket of Sydney that doesn’t have a wood-fire oven and a steady supply of buffalo mozzarella.