Anabel Dean joins the socially-distanced crowed of pandemic escapees to explore the streetscapes and epicurean delights of Mudgee, regional NSW. ‘Zest me a lemon?’ she asks. ‘Peel me…
Essentials’ editor Jamie Durrant talks with Australian actress Georgia Blizzard on her new starring role in the BBC First/Foxtel Now Australia TV Series, The Singapore Grip. Adapted by…
Essentials’ editor Jamie Durrant talks with Australian actress Georgia Blizzard on her new starring role in the BBC First/Foxtel Now Australia TV Series, The Singapore Grip. Adapted by…
Australia’s dining scene may be in COVID-induced hibernation, but our fascination with food will be (virtually) well-fed this weekend in a one-off livestream feast starring the country’s best…
It’s been a long focus of Essentials to celebrate the many landmark icons of Melbourne, Australia – its sensational cafés, historic restaurants and art galleries; including its people:…
I have grown up watching Melbourne Asher Bilu paint. He is a close friend to my father, Ivan. I used to ride my bike over to his house…
In 2009, Australian cook Justine Schofield was selected for the first series of MasterChef Australia. While she was eventually eliminated in fourth place, her individual skills and bubbly…
Essentials’ Richard Cornish recently caught up with artisan cheesemaker Andre Kogurt of Mornington, Victoria’s Blue Bay Cheese company; an interview that was long overdue. But learning to be…
Melbourne artist Ivan Durrant, who reminisces about the wild child SoHo heyday of the great Super Realist art movement. It was the end of 1975 and the leading…
Sharing the Love: We don’t tend to celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, but I have always loved the sentiment behind this special day. Having one day a year to…
As the weather warms up down under, the spring and summer seasons announce themselves with colour and life, and for most of us a host of special occasions…
A captivated crowd last night packed the house at the newly re-branded De Bortoli Wines Rutherglen Estate cellar door for the Aboriginal Exhibitions Gallery landmark exhibition titled: Northern Exposure…
The Van Haandel Group has this week announce its appointment of award-winning chef Oliver Hansford (of Stokehouse Melbourne) as the new Executive Chef of Stokehouse Q, Brisbane. Ollie…
I can honestly say that if I had to choose one dish that has travelled all over the world with me and one that I have put together…
There’s something inexplicably powerful about Empire – an art installation project that has transformed the 1930s Dandenong Ranges mansion Burnham Beeches into a living, breathing arts organism of…
Arriving in 1951 from Paris, Mirka and Georges Mora transformed the Melbourne food and art scene. Their cafés and restaurants offered sophisticated food and their Tolarno art gallery…
Its no secret that the extensive 2017 redevelopment of Rutherglen Estates’ cellar door, featuring the newly established Aboriginal Exhibitions Gallery within the same historic 1880s Seppelts Cellars building,…
Since the tender age of 19, Francesca Webster has been building a career in the luxury service industry. From early beginnings at Sydney’s Park Hyatt to Relationships &…
Internationally exhibited artist and Palm Island Aboriginal elder, Billy Doolan has exhibited and led cultural programmes across Australian and the world. Sharing inspirational messages and his artistic talents…
Every three months for the past 40 years I’ve visited my good friend the great artist Asher Bilu to get a fix – art fix, that is. He’s…
How a Scottish chef is creating a new cuisine using ancient ingredients. One of the Australia’s most influential restaurants is found at the end of a nondescript set…
Now tell me,’ says The Henry Austin’s owner, Max Mason, ‘what was the worst part of your meal.’ Flummoxed by the question and thoroughly impressed by the quality…
360Q, the two story cafe/bistro and function centre on Queenscliff Harbour’s waterfront, a new venture for Sorrento culinary King Barry Iddles, is pulling in the summer crowds. Essentials…
Photography Diana Delucia Carved into the hickory and sycamores in New York’s Westchester County is the Winged Foot Golf Club. This exclusive club is just a few kilometres…
Louis XIV, the Sun King, is famous for creating the glittering palace of Versailles and committing its court to a life of unbridled decadence. Louis liked cleaning his…
Having experienced a dysfunctional work ethic at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Melbourne, and an abusive kitchen culture within Gordon Ramsay’s London restaurant Maze, local chef David Kapay returns home…
Rutherglen’s Simon Killeen has gone it alone, sourcing fruit across North East Victoria for his new wine label Simão & Co. Essentials spoke with Simon about his pop-up…
Bryony Nainby gives the great heavy door a heave with her shoulder and it slowly slides open. The Benalla Art Gallery director walks into the vault that guards…
The air is still and warm. The leaves on the vine are beginning to turn, some yellow, others russet and golden. Rutherglen Estates’ winemaker Marc Scalzo wanders the…
This autumn, Sicilian chef Rosa Mitchell opened her new restaurant, Rosa’s Canteen, in the heart of Melbourne’s legal district. We caught up with her just before she opened…