Crack open that cleanskin you’ve been saving, folks, it’s time to hand out some Good Food Guide Caps. They’re just like the coveted Good Food Guide hats we award to restaurants, but a little bit looser fitting. More adjustable. Somewhat frayed. And the winners are…

The Johnny Depp award for the dish most in need of image rehab

Beef Wellington

Poor old beef Wellington. For the past few years, it was enjoying a small comeback, with terrific versions of the pastry-wrapped tenderloin on menus around town. Then, well, there was that family lunch in regional Victoria. Beef Wellington’s public relations team has been in overdrive ever since.
Callan Boys

The Cookin’ with Coolio Literary Prize for a celebrity, film or TV-related cookbook no one asked for

Avatar The Official Cookbook

There were several nominees for this medal, first awarded to Alan Jones and Mark Latham for their 2018 Conversations in the Kitchen. Earlier this month, Snoop Dogg released his second cookbook, Goon with the Spoon, a collaboration with Bay Area rapper Earl “E-40″ Stevens. We’ve had a look at the recipes, though, and they’re not too bad, especially Snoop’s Mexican chorizo-loaded breakfast burrito.

Meanwhile, Yellowstone: The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbook: Delicious Homestyle Recipes from Character and Real-Life Chef Gabriel “Gator” Guilbeau is almost certainly the longest-titled cookbook published this year, but we would totally eat the “Bunkhouse beer-braised beef stew with root vegetables”.

Rather, 2023’s coveted Coolio Literary Prize goes to Avatar The Official Cookbook, featuring “recipes inspired by the lush biomes of James Cameron’s Pandora”.

Essentially, this means a lot of protein balls, tacos and salads that look like something you might encounter at a Byron Bay health retreat circa 1996. Who’s for another round of “Hallelujah Mountain Cups”? CB

The RBA ‘inflation is real’ award

Two spears of asparagus for $22

Is that it? That’s the question my dining mate and I asked ourselves when two pieces of asparagus and some dippy stuff arrived on our table at a Collingwood wine bar that will remain unnamed. We picked up the menu again for some clues. Had we mistakenly ordered a side dish that we thought was more substantial because of where it was listed on the menu? No. Had we misremembered the price? Again, no. The only explanation was that we were living through scary-flation. In the weeks that followed, we played a game, showing people a photo of the pricey spears and asking them to guess how much they cost. It was the only thing that sparked joy in the whole experience.
Emma Breheny

Worst collab of the year award

Twisties candle

A big congratulations to the marketing team who came up with the Twisties X Angel Aromatics scented candles released three weeks ago. And yes, that’s a plural “candles” – you can buy them in cheese and chicken flavours. The aroma of adolescent armpit that’s unleashed when a Chicken Twisties bag is opened is not something I want to experience ever, let alone in my house. Capitalising on the wavy candle trend is smart – five points for that – but I foresee a lot of regifted Twisties candles kicking around next Christmas. NB: I’m not completely anti-Twistie. A Twistie-shaped claw-clip for your hair, I could get behind. EB

The Gary Mehigan crown for “where did this bloke come from, again?”

Jean-Christophe Novelli

If you also said, “Wait, who?“, that is exactly the right reaction. It’s what most of the Good Food team said when MasterChef Australia announced this French chef as one of its new judges. That’s not to say Novelli hasn’t done anything. His CV includes a stack of restaurants, four Michelin stars, opening a culinary school and doing a season of Hell’s Kitchen plus dozens of other TV appearances. Perhaps most importantly, he’s “the UK’s favourite French chef”, according to the culinary trend-setter that is London Speaker Bureau. Maybe he’ll become ours, too, once we remember his name. EB

The sweariest server award

Chayse Bertoncello, O.My

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of dining at O.My, The Age Good Food Guide’s newly crowned Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year, will have been introduced to the fruity delights of sommelier and co-owner Chayse Bertoncello’s vocabulary. Offended? Us? Not a chance. It’s impossible not to see it as an endearing sign of the bubbling enthusiasm he has for his craft. In fact, in these days of stage-managed, super-scripted wine upselling, it’s refreshing as f---.
Larissa Dubecki

The trophy for most confusing abbreviation

Any restaurant (and there are lots) listing “GF” next to a steak without a key in sight. Is the meat grass-fed? Grain-fed? Oh, wait, maybe they mean gluten-free? CB

The Mischa Barton medal for strangest attempted comeback

Sydney-based businessman Sam Benjamin acquired the Providoor brand in April, soon after the company – established during COVID lockdowns to deliver finish-at-home restaurant meals – went into liquidation. Providoor owed more than $6.3 million when it became insolvent, including $4.4 million in outstanding customer vouchers. Even if Benjamin picked up the rights for a steal, the unpaid vouchers (not to mention unpaid suppliers) are a public relations nightmare.

Then there’s the offering itself, partly using Uber Eats to deliver dishes created (but not cooked) by former My Kitchen Rules and MasterChef contestants and judges. Will many people order pizza from a kitchen that also spruiks beef bourguignon, tacos, burgers and jackfruit rendang? Or “Gary’s Korean chicken with Asian cabbage” instead of dinner from, you know, an actual Korean restaurant? CB

Most pointless online outrage award

Burrata

When journalist Tammie Teclemariam questioned burrata’s omnipresence in a piece for New York Magazine, it (perhaps intentionally) enraged burrata fans worldwide. Next came several articles in defence of the stuff, many of them as milky and bland as the cheese in question. Here’s the thing, though: it’s totally OK to bully a cheese, especially one with a skin this thick. If kingfish ceviche has taught us anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter how sick of it we are, or whose fault that is. Burrata isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Ellen Fraser

Highest puff-to-crunch ratio in a bread award

Embla

This is a hotly contested award, always tough to call and the subject of much heated debate among The Caps’ esteemed judging panel. You’d be hard-pressed to pick up a menu in Victoria right now that isn’t headlined by a house-baked flatbread, dark rye slice or puffy focaccia cube, but cacophonous wine bar Embla’s entry – a fluffy freekeh sourdough with mushroom butter – rises above the rest: shaggy and stretchy inside, with a crust you could park a car on. EF

FOMO award for the venue that’s hardest to get into

Apollo Inn

Booking ahead is a rigid concept requiring planning and commitment, which Melburnians don’t always have in abundance. It’s admirable, then, for Apollo Inn to provide us somewhere with delicious cocktails and snacks to wait for our restaurant table (particularly if it’s one of Trader House’s others in the vicinity). But Apollo’s popularity is also its downfall, with a mere 28 seats for the sitting. Now, we just need an even tinier bar in which to wait for our seat at Apollo. EF

Most improved vegetable

Celeriac

Kohlrabi emerged as an early frontrunner for this coveted award, but in a surprise last-minute dash to the finish, it was celeriac that wowed the judges enough to take home the gold. In the dimly lit surrounds of Reservoir’s cosy La Pinta, the clunky tuber is helped along with a little bone marrow, served threaded onto a stick and charred until black in parts. It’s unctuous, it’s umami, it’s got the element of surprise. If you only eat celeriac in one form this year, make it this one. EF

Most notable signature dish flip-flop of the year

Honey cake

A signature dish is a polarising beast. Despite the dizzying highs that no doubt come with creating, say, a sandwich worthy of its own hashtag, eventually the creator – tired of being overshadowed – will pull it from the menu in a jealous rage. We can only assume this fate befell Gray & Gray’s oft-photographed 10-layer honey cake when it was replaced by an entirely different, significantly shorter cake. Public outrage was such that, a few weeks ago, owner Boris Portnoy bowed to demand and returned the original to the menu. All is once again well in the universe. EF

The Kardashian social media oversaturation award

Chicken liver mousse eclairs

Did you even go to Lilac Wine if you didn’t snap one of chef Kyle Nicol’s savoury eclairs? On any given Friday night, as a disco ball spits violet light across the dining room and the wood fire burnishes flatbreads, dozens if not hundreds of tiny garlic-glossed eclairs are piped to order with silky chicken liver mousse then sent out to tables for their close-up.

A close second: Reine & La Rue’s ridiculously indulgent potato puree with bone marrow. EF

Skewers of 2023

Etta

There was a lot of praise for Etta’s abalone-lardo skewer, but there’s more impaling worthy of your attention at this humming Brunswick East spot. In a jaw-dropping exhibit of one-bite salt-fat-acid-heat equilibrium, chef Rosheen Kaul spears a soft-boiled chilli-marinated quail egg, a pickled green Turkish pepper, a cube of pickled daikon and another of firm tofu, then douses the lot in an oil made with Sichuan pepper, fennel and cumin. Ask owner (and Good Food Guide 2024 Service Excellence award winner) Hannah Green for a wine match just as bold and bracing. EF

The George Negus scholarship for television’s most intense 60 minutes

‘Fishes’, The Bear season 2

It takes a while to realise that you’ve been clenching your jaw and your pulse is racing, but when one of matriarch Donna Berzatto’s kitchen timers goes off for the fifth time in two minutes, you feel it. Maybe not the way her kids are feeling it, but can anything compare to living through Christmas with this family, where it’s normal to throw cutlery at someone to get their attention? This is the episode of The Bear − set in a struggling family-owned Chicago restaurant − when every character’s hang-ups finally make sense. The camera catches every sauce-splattered surface, precariously balanced baking tray and cigarette that Donna brandishes while she prepares a feast of “seven fishes” that no one ends up eating (spoiler alert: the chef’s antics upstage it). Who ever said food brings people together? EB

The Age Good Food Guide 2024 is on sale for $14.95 from newsagents, supermarkets and at thestore.com.au.