NSW eating out and food hotspots found well beyond the city limits
FOOD fans are leaving the fashionable fixtures of the inner city behind to forage further afield — and they’re finding fabulous fare right across rural and regional NSW.
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FOODIES are leaving the fashionable fixtures of the inner city behind to forage further afield — and they’re finding fabulous fare right across rural and regional NSW.
But it’s not just about visiting vineyards.
New Destination NSW data reveals the growing menu of food tourism delights being served up right across the state, from destination dining restaurants to boutique breweries, distilleries and even cooking schools.
Best of all, this increasingly tasty dish is one being heated up by Sydneysiders keen to push their palates beyond the usual hunting grounds.
Recently crunched figures from Tourism Research Australia’s National and International Visitor Surveys showed that in the nine short months from January to September last year, 1.8 million food tourists roamed through the state’s regional, and 45 per cent were from Sydney.
Another 31 per cent were from regional NSW itself.
More than half — 55 per cent — ate at regional fine dining restaurants, and 43 per cent visited local food markets.
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The tastebuds also tingled among our international guests, of which the greatest numbers came from the US with 14 per cent, while 13 per cent came from China and 12 per cent from the UK. And 60 per cent of them popped in to local food markets while another 43 per cent visited fine dining restaurants.
NSW Minister for tourism and major events, Adam Marshall — a Nationals MP who represents the Northern Tablelands electorate and is based in Armidale — put the growing attraction down to the sheer variety of options.
“When it comes to food and wine, each NSW region exudes its own energy and personality,” he said.
“As a country minister it’s particularly exciting to see some of our state’s young, passionate producers driving the trend in food tourism.
“Agriculture is a big part of country life and it’s fantastic to see young people returning to their roots in the country, with a real hunger and thirst for harnessing the industry and promoting food tourism.”
One of those young people is 29-year-old chef Frank Fawkner, who grew up in the Bulga and Broke area and opened fine dining restaurant EXP three years ago just a short drive away from his childhood haunts in the Hunter Valley town of Pokolbin.
“There’s a lot of room in the Hunter for restaurants, more and more every year,” he said.
“There are more wineries, more cellar doors and the more that’s here the more people that will come.”
He says the vibrant business community doesn’t compete, but collaborates.
“We all recommend other restaurants,” he said.
“People are not here for just a night, they come for a few days so it’s easy to share that business around.
“Lots of chefs collaborate; it’s not this competition like Sydney where everyone is fighting for all the people that they can get. If you pass on the business, it all comes around in return,” Mr Fawkner said.
Hotel booking site Wotif.com’s Wot’s Your Journey report from September 2017 showed over half of domestic travellers opt for destinations which allow them to pursue their passions — and food topped that list.
It also found half of Australians were looking to make their next trip a local one.
Wotif.com’s inaugural Uniquely Aussie Town Awards, released just last week, confirmed what the clients were saying. Four of the six winning towns were given the nod for food, wine and pub attractions. Boorowa and Brookvale were the top towns to grab a lamington, Bilpin and Young were the top towns for fruit picking and Scarborough was voted the top pub town.
Wotif travel specialist Kirsty La Bruniy said regional towns were taking advantage of the growth of food tourism.
“We are seeing lots of local tourism operators introduce more and more foodie tours, such as farmgate trails in the Hawkesbury along fruit and vegetable farms and catching your own crabs in Tweed Heads,” she said. “There are heaps of great experiences popping up and there’s definitely a trend towards activities for young families. Not all kids are happy sitting at a restaurant but a day picking strawberries gets them involved and tires them out.”
Bilpin Fruit Bowl owner Margaret Tadroffe has offered pick-your-own fruit for the last six years and can have 2000 people through her gates on a weekend. They come from Sydney and as far as Bathurst and Lithgow to pick apples and stone fruit.
“People come back constantly, they just love it,” she said. “They buy bag loads and give it to family members because they want quality, flavour and good fresh produce.
“When they pick it, it lasts a lot longer than what you get at supermarkets and they say, ‘This is amazing, how come we can’t buy it in shops?’”
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