By Sarina Lewis
MATT Preston is only too happy to spend a few minutes chatting about friend and colleague Anthony Bourdain's imminent Melbourne visit.
''He is fantastic company, a brilliant raconteur,'' Preston enthuses by phone from the MasterChef kitchen. ''He has a constant font of stories, he's travelled so well and he thinks very deeply about food. He's also very entertaining.''
Matt Preston recommends some Melbourne taste treats for Anthony Bourdain.
To wit, the game of trugo the pair played during the filming three years ago of Bourdain's No Reservations Victorian episode that saw him explore Sydney Road, Chinatown and the mod-Lebanese delights of Rumi. Along with chefs Paul Wilson and Tony Tan, Preston was one of the trio of Melburnians anointed with the task of showing the New Yorker the city's ''real'' food culture, such as the sausage rolls downed post-trugo in Brunswick, described by Preston as resembling ''a backwards croquet''. Developed by railway workers, trugo only exists in Victoria - not that this fact stopped Bourdain from whipping Preston's behind.
''He has an unnatural ability for that game,'' laughs a rueful Preston, who professes his delight in sharing his food discoveries with the intrepid chef, from Lebanese pizza at A1 Bakery to finer dining options. ''He is probably America's greatest trugo player.''
The two met when Preston first took him to dinner ''a long time ago''. Bourdain (a self-professed Melbourne-ophile) has made many trips back since, each visit an opportunity for the food columnist-turned-MasterChef judge to cement a foodie friendship. Bourdain, Preston says, is ''the ultimate dinner-party guest''. ''He has a chef's eye and a journalist's enthusiasm for discovering new things.''
Restaurateur Paul Wilson befriended Bourdain after a request from the one-time American bad boy of the chef world to show him ''where chefs hang out'' in Melbourne.
''Every time he came to Melbourne we hooked up and went on that restaurant-bar-food junket chefs used to do on a Sunday afternoon,'' Wilson says. ''We hit it off.''
Then there was Wilson's own private, Bourdain-led tour of New York that took him to some seriously hidden hot spots. ''He took me around all these underbelly joints that he thought were off the radar and important, like this crazy place where you eat yakitori from every part of the chicken you've never seen before: heart, liver, the thyroid gland, things you would never expect to eat. He is actually obsessed with food and restaurants and the whole authenticity of food: the cultural aspect, the place, the history. He's an old-school chef from the era where there was a lot of romance involved with restaurants and he lives and breathes and sleeps it. You think you are the only weirdo and it turns out he's more weird with you.''
The two have been in email contact in recent days to organise a catch-up in what will be a packed schedule for Bourdain. There is a dinner invitation to Circa, the iconic St Kilda venue Wilson has had a hand in revamping. ''He rings and says, 'I want to see Raymond [Capaldi], I want to see Matt [Preston], I want to see Donovan [Cooke]. Let's all catch up. Where do we go?'''
THE MELBOURNE TASTE TREATS BOURDAIN SHOULD TRY
Matt Preston suggests:
1. Golden Fields (2/157 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda) for crispy duck leg in buns.
2. Crispy mac 'n' cheese croquettes with home-made tomato sauce at Hare & Grace (525 Collins Street, city).
3. Bone marrow and brisket tacos at Newmarket Hotel (34 Inkerman Street, St Kilda) - ''even if we'd have to force Paul Wilson to put them back on the menu''.
4. Sour cherry juice and the mod-Turkish degustation at Gigibaba (102 Smith Street, Collingwood).
5. Attica (74 Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea) for the foraged indigenous ingredients that are unique to Australia.
Paul Wilson suggests:
1. Japanese. ''He would love yakitori at Kumo Izakaya (152 Lygon Street, Brunswick East). Also Izakaya Den (114 Russell Street, city) - he would love the fact that he has an Australian guy trying to bring a bit of Japanese bar culture to Melbourne.''
2. South-east Asian. ''He would like the fact Geoff Lindsay has gone back to his roots and done Vietnamese with a bit of flair at Dandelion (133 Ormond Road, Elwood). Chin Chin (125 Flinders Lane, city) for the atmosphere. And having pho at I Love Pho 264 (264 Victoria Street, Richmond) - he would think it's fantastic. It's so cheap and he would be excited that everyone is speaking Vietnamese around him.''
3. ''All the MoVida places because he loves Spain and would love the idea of rocking up to a few glasses of sherry or cava, and Frank [Camorra] does some really interesting tapas.''
4. ''Hellenic Republic (434 Lygon Street, Brunswick) because it's full of young Greek families eating. He'd love the lamb spit and the saganaki with the figs - all the authentic food done with a bit of flair.''
5. Italian. ''Pellegrini's (66 Bourke Street, city) for the nonnas out the back making a fairly good pasta bolognese and he can get a good coffee and watermelon granita. Da Noi (95 Toorak Road, South Yarra) for amazing, authentic Sardinian-style lamb cooked in eggs and lemon. And Di Stasio (31 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda) because the service is old school and they make a really good negroni.''