What's New in the Food and Wine Business?
Adin Lang and Ryan Carter have set up an innovative food-to-go business that has already proved popular with hotel and short-stay accommodation providers.
Called Gourmet Courier, the business delivers a variety of takeaway meals, prepared in Perth restaurants to short-stay apartments, office workers and even inner-city residents.
Customers simply select meals from Gourmet Courier’s menus, which have been sourced from nine different restaurants that operate throughout the city. Gourmet Courier arranges for the meal to be prepared, collects it and drops it off.
Restaurants providing the takeaway service to Gourmet Courier include Oliver’s on James, Seizan Japanese restaurant, Jade Chinese Seafood Restaurant, and Da Fish and Da Chip.
Mr Lang says that, based on initial success in the short-stay market, the business wanted to grow its presence in the corporate and residential markets.
Gourmet Courier’s menu book is available in 900 short-stay apartment rooms
“We started slowly because we did not want to get overwhelmed,” Mr Lang says.
“Now we are targeting the residential and the corporate market. People working late at night don’t have to ring Domino’s and get a range of pizzas. They can ring us and one person can get Indian, one person can get Chinese, one person can get Italian.”
Gourmet Courier’s menus can be sent to clients or are available through its web site, www.gourmetcourier.com.au.
Messrs Lang and Carter established the business in November last year and already employ 12 drivers to deliver the gourmet meals to a growing customer base.
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Some chefs go to great lengths to secure great produce. Star Anise’s David Coomer, for example, has Glenoth game pigeons flown in from Victoria and collects them from the airport.
Well, Gala Restaurant chef Hans Lang is another doing the extraordinary to deliver the best product to his customers. Mr Lange headed to France on the weekend to attend a truffle hunt, where he intends to handpick the truffles he will cook up in his kitchen for his customers.
Mr Lang is accompanying his supplier, who is taking him to a truffle market in Provence.
He also plans to partake in a “truffle mass”, where he will present a fresh black Perigord truffle as an offering to the local church in the French village of Richerenches. Mr Lang says the truffle mass has been an annual event for the past 50 years to commemorate the Feast of Saint-Antoine (St Anthony).
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The annual Swan Valley foodie festival, Mid Summers Feast, is planned for the weekend of February 15 to 17. Sittella Winery will yet again host its annual vintage luncheon, while Jane Brook Estate will host a seafood and sparkling sundowner event. One event sure to entice the food brigade is the seven-course degustation dinner planned at Chester’s Restaurant.
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Former Leeuwin Estate winemaker Bob Cartwright reckons the 2007 Chalice Bridge Semillon Sauvignon Blanc he had produced is one of his best…and so do the judges of the 2008 Sydney International Wine Competition, which have awarded the wine a blue gold award and a top 100 listing.
The SIWC’s annual blue gold awards are slightly different in that they depart from wine judging tradition by matching food dishes with the wine for the assessment process.
The judges this year tasted more than 500 wines from 12 countries, including Italy, France, US, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand…all matched with food.
The 2007 vintage is Mr Cartwright’s third vintage with Chalice Bridge and comes after success with another Margaret River favourite, chardonnay. The 2006 Chardonnay was awarded four stars and a top-in-category rating at this year’s Winestate magazine awards, and scored a silver medal in the recent 2007 Sheraton Wine Awards.
