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Jan 16, 2025 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
Hotel group Standard International, famed for edgy, arty hotels in locations like Miami, Ibiza and NYC’s East Village, ha chosen Fitzroy as the launch site for its new brand, The StandardX. Positioning itself as the rebellious younger sibling”, the StandardX Melbourne combines similarly stylish vibes with a low price point, achieved via the compact dimensions and cool, crisp minimalism of its 125 rooms that feature king-sized beds, Bluetooth speakers and covetable hoodie bathrobes.
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Dec 11, 2024 | 
roadbook.com | Michael Harden
Melbourne’s love of coffee has been touted to the point of cliché but, like many of the best clichés, this one’s embedded in truth.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
It may be a sign of the times that so many new restaurants are dialling up the comfort factor right now, their menus and rooms consciously embracing the familiar and the nostalgic. But it’s not all looking back through sepia-coloured glasses. These places are delivering comfort and tradition with fresh eyes and creative ideas, something that’s on full, satisfying display at Reed House.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
About halfway through the 11-day cruise up the coast of Norway, as we are approaching the Lofoten Islands, it finally dawns on me that it’s time to jettison the idea that today’s scenery cannot possibly live up to the magnificence of yesterday’s. Opening the curtains of my stateroom that morning on yet another astonishing view, the penny drops, along with my jaw.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
At first glance, Con Christopoulos opening a sushi train restaurant might seem something of an anomaly. The restaurateur behind a string of highly influential and much-emulated Melbourne gems (City Wine Shop, Siglo, Kirk’s Wine Bar, French Saloon, The European), is more readily associated with a specific brand of excellent, unpretentious Euro-channelling food, wine and style.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
Retired dairy cow yukhwe with desert lime. Calamari jeotgal and Geraldton wax. Bokbunja-poached quince with oat sable and Jersey tomme; it doesn’t take a genius to spot Mika Chae’s fondness for mashing influences at his first restaurant, the elegant Doju in Melbourne.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
roadbook.com | Michael Harden
A local writer pens a personal essay on the city of Melbourne, covering the joys of living here, and the contradictions at the heart of its characterIn 1959, three years after Melbourne hosted Australia’s first Olympic Games, Hollywood came to town. A movie was being made of the popular apocalyptic novel On The Beach and an all-star cast – Ava Gardiner, Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire among them – had descended upon a star-struck city.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
broadsheet.com.au | Michael Harden
If you were after an example of a useful and well-lived life, you’d find everything you need in Greg Malouf. One of the most talented, intelligent and influential chefs Australia has ever produced, Greg passed away in his Dubai home last week, aged 65. Greg championed the flavours of his Lebanese heritage and those of the wider Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, fundamentally changing the dining landscape in this country.
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Aug 24, 2024 | 
gourmettraveller.com.au | Michael Harden
In a region populated by well-visited destinations like Daylesford, Bendigo, Kyneton and Castlemaine, the central Victorian town of Heathcote has remained something of an unknown quantity. Sure, it’s at the centre of the eponymous wine region renowned for the quality of its shiraz in particular, but Heathcote has not exerted the same pull for food-curious travellers as some of its better-known neighbours. For many, it’s always been more a place to drive through than to.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
broadsheet.com.au | Michael Harden
Pete Wells, the New York Times restaurant critic, has pulled the pin on reviewing after 12 years and, on his way out, dropped a rather gloomy assessment of the state of restaurants today. The gist of Wells’s final essay, is about how technology – from online reservations and delivery apps to QR codes, ghost kitchens and Instagram – is stripping “the human touch and the human voice out of restaurants”.
