by The best thing I ate in 2023 was a Kensington Pride mango. I was in rural New South Wales, it was 38C, dry enough to make my lips peel like lizard skin, and I was playing Scrabble with my mom. Mango was our half-time snack. Maybe it was dehydration or hunger talking, but this mango was magnificent. Just like pistachio ice cream can have more pistachio flavor than the nut itself, the flavor of 100 mangoes seemed packed into one. It was absolutely blissful, like finding out your crush likes you or watching your team win a grand final after extra time, only sadly much more fleeting.
What is the best thing you ate in 2023? We asked Australian chefs, food scientists, sommeliers and food writers the same question, and here’s what they said.
Kylie Kwong: Traditional vegetables and meats served with injera at Ethiopian Gursha, Sydney
For me, what makes a dining experience delicious and fascinating is the opportunity to learn about a different culture. I am drawn to multicultural family businesses, where you can literally taste and feel the intergenerational family spirit, respect and culinary tradition. With this in mind, the best thing I ate this year was Gursha in Blacktown. The homemade, authentic and friendly Ethiopian cuisine of owners Rahel Woldearegay and Yibeltal Tsegaw was for me an explosion of new flavors, spices and aromas, a completely stimulating, unforgettable and culturally captivating experience.
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Kylie Kwong is a restaurateur, television host and author. She is the owner and chef of Lucky Kwong, a modern Chinese restaurant in Sydney.
Adrian Widjy: Seafood Platter at Casa Do Benfica, Sydney
The place is such a hidden place that no one seems to know about it. It’s in Marrickville, next to a very dark car park. You will see a building that says Marrickville District Hardcourt Tennis Club and if you walk around that building, passing by people playing tennis, you will see a Portuguese restaurant called Casa Do Benfica. He has an RSL vibe, he’s very humble. The best thing I ate was their huge seafood platter. It has so many things: fish, squid, clams, everything. The flavor is lemony and tasty, like the taste of Portugal. Is very good. The fact that he discovered it just this year is shocking.
Sofia Levin: Adana kebab from Kömür, Melbourne
In the northern suburbs of Melbourne there is a kebab place called Katik Turkish Take Away. Everyone says to go there for the best Adana kebab in Melbourne, but the famous owner hasn’t been involved for several years. His son, Emir, took his father’s recipes and set up a smaller shop, Kömür, and it is very good. Everything is cooked over charcoal and the meat is beautiful and juicy. Plus, like everyone else in Melbourne in their mid-30s, Emir went through a burger phase and now makes smashed burgers. He uses the same mixture for Adana kebabs, but in a burger. I drank [American food vlogger] Mark Wiens there, and said it was one of the best things he ate while traveling here.
Paul Lee: rice soup
The best thing I ate this year was a simple bowl of rice soup. It all started when my friend Adesti made it in our store with additional decorations. Then my friend Steve had a breakfast congee with an unapologetic amount of flavor on his menu at Sleepys in Melbourne. And finally, my colleague Irenne, also a chef, made me her version, also full of flavor. I grew up eating congee only when I was sick and soy sauce was the only flavor. These congees helped me reorganize my view of how delicious it can be.
Hamed Allahyari: Stewed Apricots at Avenel Fair Food, Avenel
My friend opened Avenal Fair Food, an organic grocery store near Nagambie. When I went to his shop, he was cooking apricot stew. As soon as I had the first spoonful, I thought “this is the best thing I’ve ever had.” He took me back to my childhood, when my grandmother made fruit leather as a snack for her grandchildren. She would cook summer fruits, make a stew, put it on a large tray and let it dry in the sun until it took on a leathery texture. In my language it is lavashak. Before my grandmother put the stew on the tray to dry, I would steal some. It was so delicious.
Paul Farag: menu of the day at the Botanic restaurant in Adelaide
From start to finish there wasn’t a course I didn’t like, and for me that’s pretty rare. There’s usually one of two dishes that I’m not sure about, or the seasoning isn’t right for my personal palate. There were cherry tomatoes blanched, peeled and then pumped with a concentrated filling of fermented tomato and cream. There was a kangaroo loin with camel lardo and some fermented rhubarb squeezed over the top. Even the predessert was a native leaf folded over a lime slushie. It was a really interesting meal and a really refreshing dining experience in Australia.
Junda Khoo: Braised Abalone, Fish Maw and Cucumber at New Pioneer Palace, Sydney
New Pioneer Palace is one of those OG Chinese restaurants, but in Lakemba. The food is fantastic, as Cantonese as you can get. We went after the service and started with the braised abalone, fish maw and sea cucumber, all dried seafood. In my culture, dried seafood is a delicacy and it takes a lot of skill to hydrate and cook it so that it is soft, juicy and tender. In Malaysia it was very rare, you could only get it in very elegant Chinese restaurants. Hun Loong [the chef and owner at Amah by Ho Jiak] and I have never seen that style of dried seafood in Sydney before. Eating it at Lakemba left us speechless: we felt like kings.
Adam Byrne: lasagna made with native ingredients
My favorite meal of the year was prepared by Chris. [Andrew] from Black Duck Foods, a brother of mine. We spent three nights on the farm learning from Chris and some of the elders in the area. He is incredible, he knows how to fix a tractor, he knows how to burn culturally and he knows how to make a lasagna, and that is exactly what he cooks: a lasagna but made only with native products. He made the sauce with red quandong, kangaroo and wild tomato; I think the native grains were Mitchell grass, kangaroo grass and acacia seeds; and then there was a cheese that he got locally. It was different but tasted like lasagna. It was beautiful.
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Adam Byrne is co-owner of Bush to Bowl, an Aboriginal-owned daycare and education and landscaping social enterprise.
Renee Buckingham – ‘Feed Me’ Experience at Down the Rabbit Hole Wines, McLaren Vale
I was on a spontaneous girls’ trip and we all had different dietary needs so my friend booked here. It was a euphoric experience. Not only the food but the space, the service, the wine, it was perfect. They met all dietary requirements and every element of every dish was very thoughtful and lovingly made. If you think carrots taste sad, I had the sexiest carrot dish I’ve ever had. They slow roast it and drizzle it with this tahini seasoning. She melted in the mouth. None of that honey-roasted, overcooked carrot vibe we all had as kids. Throughout the meal I was thinking: is this a cult? Everyone was very friendly and passionate about what they do.
Arthur Tong: mungo
My wife prepared this. It’s a Filipino dish called munggo, a mung bean soup/stew that is a combination of mung beans, pork, a little onion, and garlic. It’s pretty simple, probably a little more subtle than other well-known Filipino dishes, but it’s what has brought me a lot of comfort this year. It’s been a busy and unpredictable year, so coming home to something so healthy has been a bit of stability in a sea of uncertainty.
Above Kijphavee: a home-cooked feast at his wife’s family farm in Mueang, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Southern Thailand
My mother-in-law and wife prepared a feast of southern Thai food on our last visit to Thailand. We ate early in the morning, when there was a light curtain of mist surrounding the rubber trees and palm trees. We had kanom jeen (rice noodles) with hot fish curry and sweet and nutty prawn curry; stinky beans stir-fried with prawns; fried prawns battered with curry and betel leaves; khao yum (spicy rice salad with vegetables); and double-cooked squid in a sugary sauce. The cuisine is heavily influenced by Chinese and Indian: it is unique, spicy, fresh and quick to prepare.
Cherry Rainflower: Ilza Japanese Cafe, Melbourne
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I went to Tokyo this year and since then I’ve been in my Japanese cooking era. I’ve really enjoyed it all, but Ilza has been by far my favorite meal since returning to Melbourne.
The restaurant is relatively casual, in that nice sweet spot of good value and good food (I’m not at the stage in my life where I enjoy very high-end meals). The complexity of their udon curry reached places I didn’t know curry could go, and that was even after eating curry and ramens in Tokyo. It’s affordable, the food is very good and really authentic.
Yuki Hirose: kingfish necklace, curry spices and citrus kosho at Aru, Melbourne
As a Japanese, the fish necklace is not unusual for me. We eat every part of the fish: guts, skin and even eyeballs, nothing is wasted. Kingfish necklaces are often on local izakaya menus and are usually inexpensive, but I didn’t expect to see one in Aru.
It struck me: any part of a fish can be amazing, it just depends on how it is cooked and what it is cooked with. Normally I would eat it with a little soy sauce and maybe a squeeze of lemon, something quite simple, but Aru’s spicy style turned a fish necklace into something great. The spice of the curry pairs surprisingly with the oily kingfish, and the kosho kicks in at the end.
Yuki Hirose is a master sommelier working at Lucas restaurants in Melbourne.
Leif Lundin: beef tartare with bone marrow at Gueuleton, Paris
I like to try new things while traveling, and this year in Paris I had a standout meal: a Steak Tartare prepared in front of me with bone marrow. It was a thinly sliced steak with pickled red onion, fennel and chives. To that they added bone marrow that had been roasted in the oven. It’s an exceptionally good dinner and now I’m going to try cooking it at home.
Leif Lundin is the research director of CSIRO’s food programme.
