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For some time now, foodies wishing to one-up each other have been using a manoeuvre which I am now prepared to reveal exclusively to Observer readers. It goes like this. Foodie A is droning on about what fantastic food he/she had on his/her holiday " the madly cheap Tunisian place which didn't look from the outside like anything more than a shack, the impossibly remote Calabrian cafe where they didn't even have a menu but where the turnip fritters were simply fabulous. Foodie B tries not to look too restless and shifty while waiting for this recital to end. When it does, Foodie B smiles patronisingly and says: `Of course, if you want really interesting cooking, you have to go to. . .' (significant pause, while Foodie A prepares to rebuff predictable praise of Bologna or New York) `Melbourne'.
It's true: Australia " and New Zealand, by the way, so you can also try using Auckland or Christchurch if you attempt the antipodean Reverse Whammy " has a newly acquired and passionately upheld reputation for exciting cooking. As to whether that reputation is justified, I'm afraid I have no idea. But there is a strong piece of evidence to suggest that it is, and that is the work of those antipodean chefs whose travels around the globe have brought them to rest behind kitchen stoves in London. Two of these heroes are the subject of this week's column: the New Zealander Peter Gordon at The Sugar Club in Notting Hill and the Australian Bruce Poole at Chez Bruce in Wandsworth.
This was not the first time I had eaten Peter Gordon's cooking. He used to work at a club called Green Street in Mayfair; I went there one lunchtime " it's open to non-members at lunch " and had a rather ho-hum meal of a standard eclectic modern kind. Not enough happening there to write a piece about, I thought. But that must have been an...