Aggrieved Coco Roco owners make reviewer pay
Sometimes when all else seems lost, your opponent stumbles and you sail past, as Stephen Bradbury did at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to win gold. Last week, Fairfax Media stumbled in the NSW Court of Appeal when the owners of the Coco Roco restaurant in Sydney, Aleksandra, Ljiljana and Branislav Gacic, had a surprising win in their defamation case against The Sydney Morning Herald. The win was a surprise because Fairfax had a good defence. The article at the centre of the case was published in its Good Living food supplement more than eight years ago. It was written by the SMH's restaurant critic, Matthew Evans, and the glossy front page carried the line ``Matthew Evans fails Coco Roco''. He had dined at the restaurant called Coco on two occasions within weeks of its opening. He gave it a rating of 9/20. The business subsequently closed within six months. In the case, a jury found the article had defamed the Gacics by suggesting that they were selling unpalatable food , that they were incompetent as restaurant owners in employing a chef who made poor quality food and that they provided bad service. The restaurant business operated on two levels with the more expensive Coco restaurant upstairs and a bistro known as Roco downstairs. At the trial, the judge accepted that Evans had expressed his opinion about the restaurant Coco Roco and was entitled to a complete defence of comment. However on the appeal, it became clear that the opinion had only been expressed in relation to Coco and not Roco and the defence failed. The Australian, December 5.

Markets set for rate cut now, more later
The Reserve Bank's interest rate decision tomorrow will be ``line ball'', economists say, as the eurozone careens deeper into the crisis that has regulators around the world on high alert. After the share market last week staged its biggest weekly rally in three years, analysts said the result of the Reserve's meeting would hinge on European events. But the Reserve may err on the side of caution, looking through the soft housing and retail data ahead of an expected upswing in mining investment next year, if markets remain calm. Westpac chief economist Bill Evans is tipping a cut to 4.25 per cent and two further cuts in February and May which would drop the official cash rate to 3.75 per cent. The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), December 5

Masterchef cooks for master footballer
Masterchef judge George Calombaris had a food and football dream come true at his Press Club restaurant last night. The celebrity chef hosted LA Galaxy's David Beckham for dinner after the superstar arrived in Melbourne yesterday. ``This doesn't get any better,'' Calombaris said. ``We've had the Prime Minister, recently Sarah Jessica Parker, but this for me is the ultimate. ``Football is my passion. I always said if I wasn't going to be a chef I would have been a footballer. But I was just no good at playing it, hence I'm a chef. ``It's exciting for myself and my staff knowing someone of that calibre was coming in.'' Calombaris said he added a personal touch to Beckham's meal and was conscious of his athletic needs. Herald Sun (Melbourne), December 5.

Brits favour full Aussie breakfast
Australian chefs are helping guide the UK through a food revolution which has seen the creation of a London coffee culture and an introduction to breakfast dining, say industry experts. In London's upmarket Notting Hill, crowds queue each morning for a seat in celebrity Australian chef Bill Granger's first restaurant on English soil, which aims to satisfy Pommy breakfast appetites with flavours from Down Under. Promoting a brekkie menu almost identical to that of Granger's Sydney restaurant bills, Granger and Co recently opened its doors and already the high-end diners can't get enough of its offerings, including the pound stg. 12.25 ($A19.61) full Aussie breakfast. Just around the corner from Granger's new enterprise is the restaurant of compatriot Brett Graham. Head chef and part-owner of London's Michelin star-winning restaurant, The Ledbury, Graham said breakfast was an unrealised business in Britain. ``There is a massive hole in the market for anyone like Bill to come here and offer breakfast it's an untapped opportunity. He will show English restaurants how you can really do it properly,'' said Graham, who hails from the NSW Central Coast. Sunday Tasmanian, December 4.
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

Pub now known for its food rather than a massacre
In the 1980s, a bloody gunfight between bikie gangs shone a spotlight on a Milperra pub for all the wrong reasons. But a lavish makeover has helped the Mill Hotel emerge from its shadowy past and spawned south-west Sydney's latest quality dining mecca. The venue's score has rocketed in the 2012 SMH Good Pub Food Guide, to be launched on Monday, which rates the dining rooms of more than 500 Sydney pubs. It has been 27 years since that fateful Father's Day when a bikie battle outside what was then called the Viking Tavern took seven lives, including that of a 14-year-old girl. The renamed Mill Hotel, which reopened in 2009 after two years of renovation by new owners, is becoming better known for its swish surrounds, elegant beer garden and a broad bistro menu to rival any inner-city watering hole. Shrubs line the car park where people died. A single bathroom tile from the old tavern, hanging in the hotel's office, is one of the few physical reminders of the past. The transformation became official in August when the Mill won a national industry award for the best redeveloped hotel. The functions and marketing co-ordinator, Merinda Harris, said it had been ripe for a remake. "It hadn't been touched since the early '70s - it was really old and dirty and rundown, with exterior toilets and plastic furniture. It was like an old roadhouse," she said. Sydney Morning Herald, December 3.

Sobering thought: as alcohol content of wine goes up, drinkers look to the light
Wine lists can be daunting places: pages of abstract brand names, obscure grape varieties and frightening price tags. But there's one thing that's almost always missing: the alcohol content. Picking a big, potent wine when you want something closer to a spritzer and a sober drive home can sour a meal out. Or as one exasperated drinker told Forbes online: "I want a wine that tastes good and has low alcohol ... is that not possible for people who love wine for the taste ... and not to get plastered! !! Someone help!!!" The alcohol content of wine is garnering attention worldwide. For starters, it's going up. Twenty years ago, most wines were 12 or 13 per cent but now it's common to see wines at 15 per cent and above. Even the French have been critical, wrote the eminent Australian oenologist Ian Hickinbotham. Wine writers, who are looking for more intense flavours, have driven winemakers to use more mature grapes which, when fermented, are more alcoholic. Global warming is also partly to blame, acknowledged the Garnaut Report, which said warmer temperatures were producing grapes with higher sugar concentration that may increase alcohol content by 1 per cent per decade. Sydney Morning Herald, December 3.

Nights in a fast lane
A rejuvenated Melbourne hotel puts the buzz back into city stays, writes Belinda Jackson. Melburnians love the joke: nip down a back lane in Sydney and you'll find a mugging; in Melbourne you'll discover a hot little espresso bar or, in this case, a boutique hotel. The Grand Mercure Flinders Lane has had a $4.3 million makeover. The property, which previously has been a textiles factory and fashion house, has a discreet door on one of the city's most happening lanes. Blink and you'll miss it. Inside, lining the hotel's corridors, is a series of gorgeous black-and-white photos of Melbourne from the early 1900s, including images of horse-drawn carriages and the little Port Melbourne tram tootling down Batman Hill to the seaside. The Grand Mercure Flinders Lane has 57 suites and ours, the Signature Suite, is the biggest: 95 square metres with five rooms that seem to extend into the distance, the eye drawn to a fabulous, freestanding white tub placed at one end. Sydney Morning Herald, December 3.

Spotless coming clean with an unusual tactic
The proposal from the private equity group Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) to buy Spotless Group moved out of neutral yesterday and into a spluttering start, with both parties making hesitant steps towards the middle ground. It is still a fair way from a done deal but the signs of progress suggest there might ultimately be a resolution. At this stage, the offer is not formalised - it is one of the all too familiar acquisition deals that takes place outside the formal and legal auspices of the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The hard work of finding a price that is agreeable to all parties gets done on the outskirts - away from any binding agreements. Sydney Morning Herald, December 2.

Wine body downsizes offshore
Wine Australia is considering moving out of its upscale London and New York offices in a bid to cut costs. Wine Australia chief executive Andrew Cheesman says changes are needed to ensure the international marketing of the nation's top drops was not jeopardised by a fall in federal government and industry partner funding. Mr Cheesman said industry pressures such as an increase in less profitable bulk wine exports, depressed trading markets in the US and Britain and a strong dollar had been detrimental. ``While we are committed to our role in supporting the wine sector, it must be acknowledged that the existing services provided by Wine Australia cannot be sustained on the current funding base and levy arrangements,'' he told the annual meeting. He said, since 2007, Wine Australia's funding base had shrunk by 30 per cent, or $5 million. The Australian, December 5.

French pave way to jobs
South Australia has been on the culinary map for its food and wine for a long time with a host of high-class restaurants across the state. Next month famous French hospitality school Le Cordon Bleu International is introducing its culinary management program to Adelaide. Students will be able to take the program at the school's Regency Park TAFE SA campus, which will give them the skills necessary to manage a restaurant. Le Cordon Bleu education manager Brian Rungie says Adelaide is an important hub for Le Cordon Bleu global operations. ``The quality of management education expertise based in Adelaide has been paramount to the success of our bachelors and masters degree programs here,'' he says. ``It was a logical step for us to combine what we have been achieving here in Adelaide in higher education with our international renown as a leader in the delivery of culinary arts training to create a comprehensive one-stop program for chefs.'' The Advertiser (Adelaide), December 3.

Foster's chief puts his future on back burner
John Pollaers, CEO of Foster's for seven months, says he has enjoyed being a company head and wants to remain a CEO. In his time at the Australian brewer, Pollaers has overseen a turnaround while dealing with a demerger, a hostile takeover bid and a friendly scheme of arrangement. The 47-year-old says he is uncertain whether he will keep supervising the turnaround after Foster's is acquired by SABMiller. The $A12.3 billion deal is due to be finalised on 16 December 2011. The Australian Financial Review, December 3.

Too much of the drop; Vigneron moisture managers
The big wet has set Hunter winemakers some dangerous hurdles to clear in the next six weeks as vineyard battles mount to stop damaging diseases attacking the growing fruit. Like their farming colleagues in the Upper Hunter whose quality wheat has been downgraded to stockfeed, Hunter vignerons must manage mildew, bunch rot and other moisture-borne diseases that threaten their yields and financial returns. November was a record wet month, with Cessnock drenched in 160 millimetres of rain. Hunter Wine Industry Association president Andrew Margan said the next six weeks would be critical in managing moisture. "A good manager can get through that," Mr Margan said. Newcastle Herald, December 3.

Foster's takeover a beer necessity
Investors called last drinks on Foster's status as an Australian-owned company yesterday - not with raised glasses in a noisy pub, but with voting slips in Melbourne's finest recital hall. Some voices of dissent echoed through the Dame Elizabeth Murdoch Hall. But the final tally of votes in favour of SABMiller's $10 billion takeover bid - at 99.1 per cent - revealed the vast majority were content. Today is the final trading session for Foster's shares, barring any last-minute hiccup in procedural approval in Victoria's Supreme Court, after the board yesterday voted itself into redundancy. ``It took 100 years to build the company and about 30 minutes to get rid of it,'' said Andrew Babbage of Werribee, one of the small shareholders who voted to accept SABMiller's $5.40 offer. "What else could I do? The big investors had made their decision.'' The Courier Mail (Brisbane), December 2.

Fine chardonnay excites
Chardonnay was one of the big stars of the National Wine Show this year in the view of chairman of judges Tom Carson, who describes the modern Australian chardonnays as "compellingly good". "Chardonnays are a really exciting category of the show. There's more and more good chardonnay, really sensitively made, finely made chardonnay being entered, and it continues to be the most enjoyable class to judge," he says, pointing to the Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley in Victoria, south Victoria more widely and Margaret River in Western Australia. "Wines out of the cooler areas are getting a voice and recognition for the hard work they've been doing over the years. They're the antithesis of the old- style chardonnay. The wines are very fine, not heavily oaked, have wonderful complexity and really lovely refreshing and intense air about them." Canberra Times, November 30.

Tourists taking cheaper options as summer budgets take their toll
Tight budgets could see an end to the traditional summer holiday for many this year, according to recent surveys. The latest Crossman Insights survey showed 55 per cent of respondents didn't intend to travel over the coming weeks due to financial constraints.The findings were supported by mortgage provider Homeloans Ltd's Christmas spending survey, which found most Australians would not be travelling over the Christmas holidays. National marketing manager Will Keall said, "Staycations certainly seem to be the choice this year." But Eurobodalla tourism manager Catherine Reilly said tighter budgets were more likely to produce a different style of holiday rather than none at all.
While the Crossman Insights survey indicated those travelling expected to spend less - with 42 per cent ditching the motel in favour of staying with friends or family - Ms Reilly said certain businesses would be boosted by low-key revellers. "We have seen in other times of low consumer confidence that the butchers do well and the take away bottle shops," she said. Canberra Times, December 5.

Top-end holiday rentals sit empty
Demand for upmarket holiday houses over the Christmas-New Year period is lacklustre. Total Luxury Australia's Marise Crane says the luxury market is very tough, with most properties charging the same rents as last season. Terry Kaljo, owner of Contemporary Hotels, says groups of well-off friends are renting properties together, rather than families renting just for themselves. Some agents think owners may need to cut their rent to secure tenants. The Australian Financial Review, December 3.