The nominees have been announced in nine categories for 2017 Time Out Melbourne Food Awards.
Now in their fifth year, the awards celebrate Melbourne’s best restaurants in the areas of fine dining, casual dining, cheap eats and cafés.
Ten restaurants including Atlas, Attica , Cutler & Co, Embla , Igni, Kisume, Minamishima, Osteria Ilaria, Rick & Pinky and Tulum — will all vie for Restaurant of the Year.
Atlas’s Charlie Carrington, Guy Grossi from Grossi Florentino, Andrew McConnell from Cutler & Co, Andreas Papadakis of Osteria Ilaria and Coskun Uysal of Tulum will all compete for Chef of the Year.
The award for Best New Restaurant has been reinstated for 2017. The nominees are Atlas, Camus, Long Chim, Ricky & Pinky and Wilson & Market.
“Our Food Awards aren’t following the isolationist instincts of various world leaders,” says Time Out’s chief restaurant critic, Larissa Dubecki.
“In between the mod-Australian and mod-European entries, we’ve covered a huge swathe, including Thai, Japanese, Turkish, North African, Chinese and one place so geographically fluid [Atlas] it changes allegiance every four months. Let’s just call it the year of multiculturalism.”
As always, Time Out critics scoured Melbourne’s restaurant scene, dining anonymously and paying for their meals, to determine the Food Awards nominees. However this year, readers can also have their say by voting in the three People’s Choice awards.
In addition to the Beer the Beautiful Truth People’s Choice: Best Restaurant Award are two awards sponsored by MasterCard: People’s Choice: Best Bakery and People’s Choice: Best Fast Food.
The public can vote in these categories here.
Voting closes on Thursday August 31. All the winners will be revealed at a night of food, drink and celebration at Pontoon in St Kilda on Monday September 18. Tickets to the event are available now to the public.
Image credit: Good Food