What makes ‘Good Food’ good?

It’s gone — one of my favourite restaurants shuttered without warning. For years my son and I included it on our short list of go-to local places providing affordable and delicious food. My son’s nose for pretence is sharp, in food and life. The authenticity of this family-run business hidden behind an unassuming shop-front in a less-than-salubrious neighbourhood won him over. Indeed, we returned again and again.

It was never a busy place. The Afghani proprietor/chef and his wife toiled alone in the kitchen while his daughter waited on the few tables available to guests. What was consistent was the pride this family took in its food and hospitality. Honestly, that large round plate of ‘mantu’ — the most delicate Afghani dumplings filled with minced lamb and resting in a pool of garlicy yoghurt sauce — was a revelation on our first visit and remained so until our last.

As far as I know, this little restaurant never featured in lists of the city’s coolest or in the most trusted guides to Melbourne’s best. Certainly it was never awarded stars or hats for its efforts. Perhaps if it had, it might have been overrun and its magic lost.

In her wonderful memoir, Hunger Like a Thirst, The Age’s chief restaurant critic Besha Rodell provides a refreshingly honest appraisal of such guides and their limitations: “My favourite restaurants in Melbourne don’t even make it into The Good Food Guide most years because they don’t score highly enough. I talk about this constantly with my editors, with other writers, and everyone agrees that we need to be more inclusive, more reactive to the way people actually eat these days. But change is slow, and there’s still a bias against what the higher-ups see as ‘cheap eats’, a term that usually only serves to devalue immigrant labour and foodways.”

It’s when I recall that little restaurant in Melbourne’s north, the consistent quality of its food, the warmth of its welcome, and the beaming smile of its chef when after every visit we thanked him for his hospitality, that I’m reminded of what makes food and restaurants good, interesting and worthwhile.

Reflecting back on her years in restaurant criticism, Rodell concludes, “My time on the road has made me appreciate that wonderful food is found at every level, and horrible food is found at every level, and the history and narrative behind the food is often the thing that excites me just as much as the food itself. ‘Luxury items for rich people’ isn’t a very interesting narrative.”