03 May 2008

Food on Display. Waterfront



Not to be outdone by Rockpool in the same venue, The
Zagames (Oops, thanks Gobbler for the correction, see comments below) Zampelis Group's Waterfront Restaurant is also displaying its meat. Set into a wall facing the public concourse within Crown Casino is this fridge and the following description.





Who would have imagined that the provenence of our food would become so important that venues are displaying their wares like panties on a refrigerated clothes line? Once the public would have recoiled from such displays, more common to Asian wet markets and European villages.

Also at the casino is the Salumi counter at Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons, where smoked meat hangs on display in an upmarket version of a Croatian's garage I once visited in Greensborough - where tempting home cured meats festooned the eaves.

Pearl and The Point record details of their suppliers in their menus. Asians have always preferred their seafood freshly killed, so select their meal from restaurant display tanks.

What next? Are we soon to go to restaurant kitchen gardens to forage for vegetables before the meal?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

G'day Sticky-With respect, it's actually the Zampelis Group, the Zagames do the pubs & cars.
Interestingly the waterfront preceded Rockpool by a year & half with their 'ode to the meatlocker'.
Having an intimate knowledge of the Zampleis group & their staff training, the meat in the picture looks too crowded to 'dry age' effectively. Paradoxically their meat locker may not be sending the best message to temp customers?
The seafood display used to take 1.5 hours to set up in the old days but I have to say, did look impressive.
Your point sticky about whats next made me giggle. A good friend of mine , a fine chef made such an effort as to have just snipped herbs & salad leaves served straight from the garden.
AT one function I saw nearly every person sweep this garnish away without a though to get at the meat on the dish. It made me sad.
I wonder if the punters eating there would care if they were informed that it was just picked?
Out of ten I'd say two would be & the rest just couldnt care less or wouldn't even think about it.
What does that say about our diners?

Ed Charles said...

I've noticed that meat too. It always looked really manky. Gobbler, is their fish any good?

Anonymous said...

Yes it it was by simple virtue of being busy so the stock was turned over quickly & it never had a chance to fester-however dont know these days.

stickyfingers said...

Thanks for the correction Gobbler, I really wasn't on the ball. I don't walk through the casino often so did a double take when I saw the locker. I expect most people wouldn't know what they are looking at when they see it, though a few may take issue with the volume of meat in there.

As for the foraging, I happen to know that is an emerging trend and have even had clients ask how that can be applied in a commercial sense.

For people - like yourself - who are champions (literally) of regional produce it would appear to be an easy enough epicurean vogue to channel than for the major multi-national food corporations. But I have had my thinking cap on as to how to take it to market as I always love a challenge.

Anonymous said...

They've changed their display technique a bit since I photographed it in October 06. I'll email the pic to you.