A restaurant critic's 20 insider tips from a lifetime of travelling

The Age

2 days ago

On my first trip overseas, four decades ago, I did everything wrong. I ordered cappuccinos after lunch in Rome, and ate with my left hand in Morocco. On my second trip, I spent three days in France with my watch on English time, turning up an hour early to everything. On my third trip, I nearly died in Tijuana from drinking the local water, and on my fourth, I drank so much ouzo at a Greek wedding in Lindos, that I woke up a day and a half later.
But failures convert soon enough into lessons, and it has all been put to good use in a long career of writing about food and reviewing restaurants. You'll be pleased to hear I've refined my travel techniques and developed some useful new strategies since those early days. Here are some of the things I've learned, in case they help.
Lesson 1: Eat where you are
Never ignore the obvious. Why drive a shonky little hire car from Paris to Domremy-la-Pucelle in Lorraine, the birthplace of Joan of Arc, and then have a burger for lunch? Please, have quiche Lorraine instead.
Order pasta bolognese in Bologna and they will bring you the real thing – a plate of tagliatelle with a ragu made from slow-cooked, hand-chopped meat. It's a revelation, whether you go high-end at Ristorante Donatello, or cheap and cheerful at Osteria del Cappello, where waiters wear T-shirts with the hashtag #nospaghettibolognese. Once you have tasted the original, you have a benchmark for all future quiches and spag bols.
Lesson 2: Adopt the $10 rule
I nicked this one from New York Times best-selling author and professional traveller, Chris Guillebeau. He made a vow that even though he was trying to be frugal, he would always pay $10 or so for something that improved his life while he was on the road.
Too many times, he said, he would refuse to pay $10 for a taxi or a bus, then spend an hour walking in the rain to a hotel. Or decide not to eat a sandwich at the airport because it was too expensive, only to end up tired, lethargic and hungry. Trying to save money makes all the sense in the world – until it ruins your day.
Lesson 3: It pays to get lost
If you don't know where to go in a strange city, then, congratulations, you're about to have an adventure. I once had a spare day in Hong Kong and jumped on the East Rail Line (the old Kowloon-Canton Railway, founded in 1910), and took it to the final stop on the line.
I ended up wandering around Sheung Shui for a few hours, not really knowing where I was (in the New Territories, within hailing distance of Shenzhen, apparently). But it was all there – the wet markets, the parks, the street food, the noodles, the dumplings, and the life. See mtr.com.hk
Lesson 4: Avoid the most expensive restaurant in town
Because it will be very similar to the most expensive restaurant in the last city you were in. Globalisation, culinary trends, and a focus on luxury instead of local ingredients has resulted in a certain sameness across the upper echelon of dining. You can now eat caviar with blinis in Bologna, Baltimore, and Brisbane, which is wonderful, if that's what you want. But today's most interesting restaurants don't conform to anyone's definitions. In Paris, you can dine at Restaurant Guy Savoy, where the tasting menu is €680 ($1200) a person. Or you can jump on a train to Versailles, and dine at the romantic farm restaurant Le Doyenne, run by Australian chefs James Henry and Shaun Kelly, for €130 ($230) a person. Stay the night in one of their rooms and you'll still have change. See guysavoy.com; ledoyennerestaurant.com
Lesson 5: Adopt a chef
Find a chef you like, and follow him or her. On Instagram, sure, but also from restaurant to restaurant. Today's chefs are more fluid than those of yesteryear, and the ambitious chefs move around to learn.
An example: Beau Clugston, an Aussie chef from Sawtell, New South Wales, was cooking in Copenhagen with Rene Redzepi at Noma in 2005. Fourteen years later, I ate his food again at his own seafood-focused restaurant, Iluka, in Copenhagen. This year, I caught up with him again at Kiln, where he oversees the menu at the Ace Hotel Sydney. To see the evolution in his style and thinking has been both fascinating and a privilege. And it isn't over yet. See restaurantiluka.dk
Lesson 6: Do squats and lunges
Sitting on a low plastic stool on the streets of Hanoi or Bangkok to dine on local food is no problem at all. Getting up is the problem. Doing daily squats and lunges to strengthen leg muscles will avoid having to ask for assistance (don't you scoff, young people, your time will come). Putting your hands on your knees and spreading your feet wider can also help in getting vertical.
Similarly, the Japanese custom of sitting on the floor to dine at low tables is sociable, excellent for digestion, and potentially painful. Ask for a small cushion (zabuton), keep your back straight, and when it comes time to get up, ask people to help – or to look away.
I had a trip to Paris planned, with the idea of having my birthday dinner at Yves Camdeborde's Michelin-starred Le Comptoir.
Notoriously difficult to get into, it doesn't take reservations. So I booked into the charming Hotel Le Relais de Saint Germain next door, run by his wife. Bingo, hotel guests have priority access to a table, so happy birthday to me.
Sometimes, you need to be devious. I've also asked the head waiter at one restaurant to help me get a table at another (trust me, everyone knows everyone else in the hospitality game). One text, and I'm in. Whatever it takes. See hotel-paris-relais-saint-germain.com/en
Lesson 8: Do not rely on your concierge
They will do their very best to send you to the sort of place that their most conservative guests would enjoy. This will be confirmed when you spend all evening surrounded by your fellow hotel guests. Some concierges operate on commission; the great ones do not. But you'll get a better result doing your own homework than you will from a harassed concierge who looks up TripAdvisor.
How else are you going to find out that giant lychees, fat cherries or wild asparagus are in season? A bustling food market is a signpost pointing directly to the best local produce and the best local place to eat. I once trailed a chef back to his restaurant in Marseille (Le Miramar) because he bought such great shellfish from the fish stalls on the pier. The butifarra sausages on display at Mercat de Sant Antoni in Barcelona meant I knew what to order for a quick tapas lunch at Maleducat nearby.
At the Mercato di Porta Palazzo in Turin, in Northern Italy, there was a huge stall of the highly prized snails from the province of Cherasco, a traditional local specialty. The stall-holder gave me a list of who bought her best snails, and I sallied forth to Tre Galline for some real 'slow food'. See lemiramar.fr; 3galline.it; maleducat.es
Lesson 10: Forget about food and just do life
Some of the best (food) times can come from forgetting all about your stomach and your restaurant bucket list. I skipped dinner in a top New York restaurant to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert in New Jersey, and ended up sharing beers with fellow fans on the train and having one of the best hot dogs of my life. Glory Days.
Lesson 11: Some of the best food is in railway stations
Especially in Japan. One of the great joys of train travel in Japan is buying exquisitely compartmentalised bento boxes at the station to take on your journey. In Tokyo, the so-called Ramen Street lies beneath the vast Tokyo train station, with eight wall-to-wall noodle shops. (I like Rokurinsha, but so does everybody else in Tokyo at lunchtime). And my favourite yakitori joint is Birdland, underneath Ginza station.
You could travel by train around Japan, never leave the stations, and eat supremely well. See rokurinsha.com/en; ginza-birdland.sakura.ne.jp
Lesson 12: If a restaurant has a life-size chef statue outside, do not enter
They may as well stand outside and scream 'tourist trap'.
Lesson 13: Embrace the unknown, and then eat it
You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone; otherwise breakfast granola will be the high point of your day. Adopting a 'try anything once' approach is how I met my first foul-smelling but ace-tasting andouillette (sausage made from pork intestine) at Aux Crieurs de Vin in Troyes, a magical medieval old town in the Champagne region, famous for its narrow, cobblestone streets and half-timbered houses.
It's also why I added blood cakes to my morning pho noodle soup at Pho Hung in Ho Chi Minh City – not just for the rich, velvety texture they bring to the broth, but to give me the internal courage to walk across the streets of beeping, bumper-to-bumper motorcycles. See guide.michelin.com/en; auxcrieursdevin.fr
Lesson 14: Be Australian
There have been times I've hidden my Australian accent. But I've had better times, and made more friends, by embracing my inner and outer Australianness: chatting to everyone in sight, shouting people a beer, treating people equally, and generally being up for anything.
Lesson 15: There's an app for that
Some of us may remember a time when 'there was a book for that'. We clutched heavy tomes on the plane such as Arthur Frommer's pioneering Europe on $5 a day. We tucked small Italian and Greek phrase books into rucksacks, and unfolded giant paper maps wherever we would roam.
Now, there are apps that translate languages, map your route, choose a restaurant, book your table, hail a cab for you to get there, and, with more AI up their sleeve, will no doubt eat your meal for you and review it on Instagram. Your phone is all you need, and is already packed with more than you need (and did you know the calculator on your smartphone has a currency exchange function? You learn something every day).
Lesson 16: Keep a journal
For decades, I've travelled with a notebook. At first I logged everything I ate, and everything I spent. Basically, it was the birth of the listicle.
Then my wife and I started really writing about our travels. Where we were, what happened, who we met, and yes, of course, what we ate, and why. Writing it down taught us to capture those fresh, precious insights you get in a new place, when your radar is sharp and everything is exciting.
These days, I often record impressions on the phone, but it's not the same. We now have three bookshelves of journals that cover a lifetime of eating and drinking around the world, and it's a joy to pull one out and relive the highlights. My advice: start now.
Lesson 17: Go back to the beginning
In any field of study, it's important to know your history, to get context and perspective. When in England, that means dining at the oldest restaurant in London, Rules, which opened in 1798.
The dining rooms are wood-panelled and velvet-seated, the walls thick with oil paintings, and the menu is practically Dickensian. Steak and kidney pie. Potted shrimp. Treacle tart. And, most famously, roasted grouse, served only after the Glorious 12th, the twelfth day of August, when the strictly enforced red grouse hunting season begins. See rules.co.uk
Lesson 18: If you have a sense of humour, use it
If my wife goes to the same cocktail bar in a strange city two nights in a row (it's not uncommon), she'll sit up on the bar stool and say, 'I'll have the usual, thanks'. If the bar staff are any good at all, they'll get the joke.
At Katz's Deli in New York (where Harry met Sally), gentle insults and humour have been part of the service since it opened in 1888. Once, a very old, dour waiter stopped by my table, to ask where I was from. When I said 'Australia', he fished in his pocket for some coins, and slapped them on the table. 'Here's the money,' he said. 'Go back.' See katzsdelicatessen.com
Lesson 19: Don't stay in the hotel for breakfast
If you're jet-lagged and tired, then pay the money and stay in. But the next day, go out for breakfast. Wander down the street to a corner cafe in Milan and stand at the bar with a coffee and a cornetto (croissant); find a boulangerie in Paris for a baguette; or a konbini (convenience store) in Japan for an egg sandwich. Suddenly, you're dealing with locals, using the currency, practising the language, and getting a bite of reality.
Lesson 20: There will be bad days
There will be days when you are ill, miss your flight, have a woeful meal or be wilfully overcharged. You just have to remember that a bad day will always be followed by a good day. The thing that keeps me going, wherever I am, is that the next best meal of my life could be just around the corner.
Five things I've learnt travelling Australia
Go to the pub
You're in outback Queensland? Go to the pub. You're in a trendy inner-city suburb? Go to the pub. You're in a seaside resort town? Go to the pub. Italy has the trattoria, France has the Bar Tabac, Vienna has the coffee house, but we have the local pub. It's where the oldies, kids, locals and blow-ins all come together in a happy mess over a chicken parmigiana, cold beer, and a game on the telly.
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Have a pie
The classic Aussie meat pie and tomato sauce ('dead horse') is quite capable of saving a life. You can measure our highways and byways by our pie ways. I favour the Rolling Pin Bakery in Ocean Grove on the Bellarine Peninsula for its meat pies, but 'Best Pie' in the 2024 Great Aussie Pie Comp went to the chunky beef pie at Melton's Buddy Bakery in Victoria. Go the pies.
Don't take Australia for granted
These tips for travelling overseas apply in Oz as well. Keep a journal, head to the local market (maybe forget the one about great food being in railway stations). Especially the tip for 'eating where you are'. Australia's native ingredients are uniquely delicious and diverse, and tell stories about who we are, from barramundi and warrigal greens, to marron, mud crab, and macadamias.
Drink where you are
Australian wine varietals change from region to region. You wouldn't go to Portugal and not have a glass of port. Likewise, don't go to South Australia's Barossa Valley without drinking grenache or shiraz. The Hunter Valley's finest is a zesty semillon, while cabernet is at its best in Coonawarra and Western Australia's Margaret River. Go south, to Victorian peninsulas and Tasmania, for cool-climate pinot noir. Cheers!
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Never miss a country town
They're magical places, country towns; full of history, charm, resilience, agricultural shows and country people. You'll get a more truly Australian experience from a day in a country town than you will in a week in a capital city, whether it's Camperdown in the Western District of Victoria, Ross in Tasmania, or Busselton in WA. Seek out farm stays, markets, bakeries, and the local Chinese restaurant (every good country town has a local Chinese restaurant).