Foodie guide coffee war: Restaurant owners say brand choice affects ranking
SYDNEY’s most famous foodies are brawling over whether a restaurant’s chosen brand of coffee affects its ability to win a coveted ‘hat’.
NSW
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THERE’S trouble brewing in Sydney’s food scene, with some of the city’s biggest food identities divided over the latest Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards.
Caught in the middle is Sydney-based empire Vittoria Coffee, which sponsors the awards and Fairfax’s annual Good Food Guide, with some chefs claiming they have lost hats after announcing a switch to a rival coffee brand.
Other food identities, who have never used Vittoria coffee and have never received a hat, claim their choice of coffee has contributed to their exclusion.
Vittoria Coffee and Fairfax, which publishes the annual Good Food Guide, vehemently deny the claims as “complete fabrication”, accusing the complainants of bitterness.
Several restaurants which do serve Vittoria coffee — including Bistro Moncur, Berowra Waters Inn and Mercado — have also recently lost hats, while the nationwide Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year, Attica in Melbourne, has not served Vittoria coffee for several years.
Industry heavyweights Justin Hemmes and Neil Perry both say any claim of coffee-based bias is “ridiculous”.
Vittoria Coffee has published advertisements noting it sustains commercial partnerships with 60 of The Guide’s ‘hatted’ restaurants listed in this year’s awards, which were announced at a ceremony at The Star on October 13.
Paola Toppi, whose 250-seat trattoria Bar Machiavelli, is widely touted as one of Sydney’s hottest restaurants, has not been recognised with a hat.
“But I don’t expect to be because I’ve never had a relationship with Vittoria Coffee,” says Toppi, who oversaw the iconic Machiavelli with her mother Giovanni in the CBD for 26 years before opening Bar Machiavelli last year.
“I’ve never heard anything like that and I have been around for a very long time.”
“Unfortunately I think there’s definitely a correlation there between Vittoria and The Guide and I think it’s only gotten stronger and stronger in the past few years.
“For me it doesn’t matter because I have great clientele. but for the younger guys starting out ... I think it’s terrible to have this pressure to live up to. To get a hat and keep it.
“Especially when there are so many politics involved.”
Also absent from this year’s honours was Colin Barker, head chef for more the past 11 years at Sydney’s iconic Boathouse at Blackwattle Bay, which missed out on a hat for the first time in more than two decades.
“All we care about is bums on seats not hats on heads.”
The restaurant, in Glebe, is owned by Tony Papas and Robert Smallbone, who are also the owners of coffee empire Allpress.
This year, Barker believes, that factor finally cost his restaurant its one hat rating.
“Do I think what coffee you serve influences the hats? Yes, I do,” Barker says.
“That has been the talk in the industry for a long time and a lot of people would be afraid to talk about it but we don’t care anymore,” he added.
“We lost our hat on Monday night (at the awards) and on Tuesday had a full house.
“All we care about is bums on seats not hats on heads.”
Another high-profile snub was French celebrity chef Guillaume Brahimi.
A darling of the Good Food Guide for two decades at Bennelong and later Guillaume in Paddington, Brahimi’s new CBD offering Bistro Guillaume was shut out of the Guide despite the fact he was awarded 15/20 by SMH reviewer Terry Durack soon after opening in September 2016.
The Good Food Guide ‘how we score’ section indicates a score of 15 is “indicative of one hat”, while 16 or more is indicative of two or more hats.
Brahimi, who has long served Vittoria coffee, announced on his Instagram account in June 2017 that he was to follow good friend Tetsuya Wakuda and join the ranks of chefs jumping over to rival Nespresso.
“Four months later he found himself excommunicated by the Guide,” says a friend and fellow celebrity chef who described Brahimi’s exclusion the ‘biggest critical snub I’ve ever seen’.
Brahimi was more diplomatic when contacted, saying he was shocked to miss out on a hat.
“I don’t think switching to Nespresso had anything to do with it ... but if it did I’d be devastated,” he said.
A Fairfax spokesman said “You are correct we do say in the book that 15/20 equals one hat — but the Terry Durack review which awarded 15/20 was done for the Good Food section (not the Guide), which also says that ‘Restaurants are reviewed again for the Good Food Guide and scores may vary’.”
Soon after, Racine lost its hat.
The majority of Vittoria Coffee’s turnover, around 40 per cent, comes from sales through Coles and Woolworths, thanks to its status as the brew “proudly served in more hatted restaurants than any other pure coffee brand,” according to Vittoria Coffee’s own website.
Country NSW restaurant Racine, in Orange, was awarded a hat in 2012, 2013 and 2014 but dropped off the list in 2015 — several weeks after owner Shaun Arantz claims he declined an offer from a visiting Vittoria Coffee rep to switch his coffee brand.
“I already use a supplier that I’m very happy with but the rep actually said he didn’t care if I didn’t even use his product,” Arantz says.
“He just said; ‘We will give you a free machine and you just need to buy one bag of beans off us a year. We just want to use your brand to promote our brand’.
“And it was made clear that not switching would (affect his position in the Guide).”
Soon after, Racine lost its hat.
“But obviously it wasn’t a huge surprise to me at the time,” he laughs.
“But it didn’t upset me to be honest because it didn’t affect my business.
“It may have, once upon a time. But with the growth of social media ... and diners becoming much more knowledgeable about food ... I think the Guide has become less and less relevant.”
Hospitality king Justin Hemmes, who serves Vittoria coffee in all his award-winning venues, described any suggestion of influence as “ridiculous. If someone's telling you that, they are telling porky pies,” Hemmes said.
Perhaps Sydney’s most-famous chef, Rockpool founder Neil Perry, caused an industry sensation last year when he ended his long-running association with Vittoria Coffee and switched to boutique Melbourne brand Market Lane.
Perry, who is also a contributing columnist for the SMH, said that after 17 years it was simply ‘time for a change’. He also emphatically dismissed the notion that Vittoria Coffee exercises any influence on which restaurants earned hats.
“I’ve never heard anything like that and I have been around for a very long time,” Perry said.
A Vittoria Coffee spokesman denied the company wielded any editorial power on the Guide and labelled accusations to the contrary as ‘sad’.
“The facts in no way shape or form support any claims of that type and all I can say is that it might only be made by someone who is looking to blame someone else for decisions made by (Good Food Guide) judges,” the spokesman said.
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“Vittoria Coffee has no editorial influence in any way, shape or form.
“And for the Telegraph (published by News Corp Australia) to publish these sorts of allegations seems to me to be a direct attempt to discredit the Sydney Morning Herald which is its biggest rival.”
The spokesman also pointed out that the restaurant to receive the Guide’s highest honour of Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year — Melbourne’s Attica — no longer serves Vittoria Coffee.
“So the claims (of bias) do not match up,” he said.
A Fairfax Media spokesman said: “The Good Food Guide, its editors and reviewers, are 100% editorially independent. For 17 years Vittoria has been a highly valued partner of our industry awards. The reviewing process is rigorous and no commercial partner ever gets involved in our restaurant reviewing process and awarding of Hats. It is a complete fabrication and mischievous to suggest otherwise.”