FOOD AND Dining

DINE YOUR WAY FROM THE PAST TO PRESENT
WITH THE CHEFS OF THE MURRAY

The blend of European food culture and uniquely-grown ingredients
has created the first truly regional cuisine in the country.

Fine dining is nothing new to us. Good food has been plentiful, varied and sought after in the Albury Wodonga region for thousands of years. The first to enjoy the many delicacies and delights of the region were the Wiradjuri people, the original custodians of this remarkable culinary countryside.

The nutritional generosity of the Murray and its verdant plains developed in them a culture of appreciation and care for local produce that has continued down to this day.

‘Look after the land and the rivers and the land and the rivers will look after you.’

This ancient Wiradjuri principle could just as easily have been written by the farmers working the fields and chefs preparing their produce today. The two are just as closely linked as when the Wiradjuri caught and ate their first Murray Cod.

Those first, locally-grown gourmets have been joined over the centuries by others, from more distant tribes and lands. Each bringing with them their own cultural improvisations and experiences, enhancing and refining what went before. So that now, today’s taste bud tourist to our region has a much larger, far more imaginative culinary theme park in which to play and explore.

The most significant influence on the region’s cuisine was the arrival of hundreds of thousands of non English speaking refugees and migrants from Europe, immediately after the Second World War.

The vast majority of these people passed through the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, on their way to new lives in Melbourne, Sydney and anywhere else that workers were needed in our country. But many stayed in Albury Wodonga, setting up restaurants, cafes, delicatessens and smokehouses, to provide familiar food to homesick arrivals.

Along the way they introduced and educated local palates on the pleasures and refinements of European cooking. Their food culture has improved the cuisine and food sensibility of the entire country, but its influence and effects were first felt and established here.

The result of this inspired medley of the ancient and modern, the local and imported, is something quite unique in Australia - a distinct regional food ethic and cuisine whose recipe book is like an edible map of the world.

Our chefs and bakers, butchers, speciality cheese shop keepers, fishmongers and greengrocers are all champions of our local produce, and know their growers by name.

Because in an era of high volume, huge acreage production, our local farmers have chosen to grow our diversity of cold climate and river plains produce on a small scale, and rotating their crops seasonally. So that the very best of what the land provides is available at its natural peak, for our kitchens.

The benefits of this care and respect for what’s ours becomes very apparent in the quality and taste of the local foods.

The manners and styles of how you can enjoy eating here is as broad as the menus themselves.

You’ll find contemporary restaurants in heritage buildings, alfresco cafes on cobblestone streets, bistros in converted banks, patisseries and pizzerias in colonial terraces. We’re as grand or as modest, contemporary or quirky as your own taste prefers. But whether you order a seared venison tenderloin, a crocodile and crab meat pie or simple bowl of chips, our architectural heritage and beautiful, sweeping countryside provide you with a wonderful complement to every meal.

If you prefer to discover and create your own food experiences then explore the possibilities at our many regular Farmers Markets, the Rutherglen Country Fair, our Food and Wine Festival, wine tours and tastings, and the many small speciality food shops throughout the region.

There you’ll find freshly smoked, locally caught Murray cod, trout, quail, rabbit and beef, German Kasseler and Weisswurst, Italian sausages and proscuitto, locally grown olives, fruits and nuts, rich Milawa cheeses, Shiraz-filled chocolates and quince paste. All finished off with a freshly roasted coffee. Or perhaps a hundred-year-old Muscat. But that’s another story. 

The Aromas of Nostalgia

 Many of our smallgoods and delicatessen-style producers arrived as part of the migrant settlement scheme at Bonegilla, bringing with them a love for European produce and meat delicacies, and the skills to make them.  Imported hickory is still used for smoking to ensure authentic tastes whether it be schinken, kransky, kabanos, black puddings or biltong. The wood’s aromatic perfume imbues  the produce and those hanging meats with a delicious nostalgia.

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