James Morrow: Stop trying to make Vegemite look sophisticated

If there is one good thing to come out of the ridiculous attempt of a Newcastle cafe to artfully plate up Vegemite toast, it’s this: No chef, cook, kitchenhand, or aspiring reality TV food show contestant will ever drag the back of a spoon through anything ever again.

IF THERE’S one good thing to come out of the story of the Newcastle cafe that decided to artfully “plate up” (and aren’t they two words we never want to hear together again) their Vegemite and toast, it is this:

No chef, cook, kitchenhand, or aspiring reality TV food show contestant will ever drag the back of a spoon through anything ever again.

This is what is served up when you order Vegemite toast at Core Espresso in Newcastle, NSW. Picture: Instagram

By now half the world is familiar with the hilarious attempt by the Core Espresso cafe to turn that simplest of Australian breakfasts into something worthy of two Michelin stars. The other half is just waking up to pictures of the dish in their social media feeds.

But so far as I can tell, no one has stated the screaming obvious about this “dish”.

And that is this: While there’s no polite way to put this, smearing a glob of vegemite across a plank of wood doesn’t look sophisticated.

‘It’s just toast!’: Cafe Core Espresso at centre of Vegemite on toast drama hits back

The usual fare at Core Espresso cafe in Newcastle. Picture: Facebook

No. It looks like what happens when someone steps in a dog turd on a backyard deck.

Gilding the lily with an artful scoop of butter (“Western Star?” one imagines customers asking hopefully, waiting for the reassuring response, “Nothing but the best!”) that is garnished with, of all things, a random speck of micro-greenery takes it to a whole new level.

As does serving it on a plank of wood.

This is Vegemite toast. It’s not that hard. Picture: Sarah Matray

Which is something that, as I wrote earlier this year, is another symptom of restaurant kitchens that have decided that signalling is more important than service, and that millennia of developments in the world of crockery should be smashed like so many plates at a Greek wedding in favour of something messy, primitive, and unhygienic like a hunk of wood.

While there is plenty of space for chefs to get creative with the way they serve their food — we eat with our eyes as much as our mouths after all — it’s hard to imagine a more tired trifecta of trends being pressed into service for a the meal that needs them least.

Of course it would be unfair to single out Core Espresso. From the humblest cafe to the hippest trattorias, we seem to be sliding ever more to the ridiculous.

This week also saw a cafe in Alexandria called out and shamed for serving a side of sauce for $6 a throw — which is basically the living definition of the term “un-Australian”.

Pictured at Mark + Vinny's Spaghetti and Spritz Bar in Surry Hills is Mel Brass and Conrad Cheng enjoying a blue pasta and a red pasta. Picture: Richard Dobson

And as the Daily Telegraph’s Renata Gortan reported, there is now a pasta joint in Sydney that is offering a vegan “take” on spaghetti carbonara, as if there is a substitute for the classic combination of eggs, cured pork, and cheese.

While their hippy-friendly dish may soothe the troubled consciences of those who will pay $26 for a plate of “smoked mushroom pancetta, vegan egg yolk, plant based parmesan”, please, let’s not call things what they aren’t.

Daily Telegraph Opinion Editor James Morrow. Picture: John Fotiadis

Yes, there are probably more important things to worry about: China, Russia, the national debt.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t worry about the small things, too.

Like chefs who take our hard-earned and in return take the proverbial.

James Morrow is Opinion Editor of the Daily Telegraph

Originally published as James Morrow: Stop trying to make Vegemite look sophisticated