Opposite page from left: Lunch in the
Adelaide Botanic Gardens as part of Tasting
Australia. Below: Botanic Gardens chefs
Anthony Myint and Paul Baker.
the dish is over and we have to move onto
something else. We just don’t keep the dish
going and buy something in,” he says.
For the Tasting Australia lunch, which
garnered Blanco Food and Events Best
Product or Service at the 2016 Australian
Event Awards (to keep company with their
other two Event Awards, plus a number
from the South Australian and national
Restaurant and Catering Awards), Baker
teamed up with Anthony Myint, founder of
restaurant The Perennial in San Francisco
and a veritable celebrity of the food world,
to create a four-course degustation menu,
along with canapes, which included 16
ingredients from the Gardens.
The lunch for approximately 50 people
was held outside in the Botanic Gardens
themselves under 150-year-old Moreton
Bay Fig trees.
Delivering a fine dining menu offsite is
always a challenge, says Blanco. “A lot of
that comes down to the creativity of the
menu and being resourceful and adapting
to things… we pay a fair bit of attention to
make sure that it is done well,” he says.
But Baker counters that they now have so
much experience in so doing that “we can
actually take the restaurant outside into
any space that we want to”.
Baker’s claim is validated by the aftermath
of the lunch, which, apart from the Event
Award, has garnered the Botanic Gardens
Restaurant a write-up in GQ France and will
most likely see Baker head overseas to two
different continents in 2017 to showcase his
philosophy and South Australian produce to
international audiences.
Baker is also able to articulate how exactly
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events do such a great job of showcasing what’s
unique about Adelaide and South Australia.
“Our events are really just an expression of
us – we love the Gardens, South Australia;
the producers, they’re all friends, our
wine makers are generally friends of ours
– I guess that’s the thing about South
Australia – it’s a little place considering
how big it is and the whole food community
is friends,” he says.
Lonely Planet chose South Australia as
one of its must-visit destinations for 2017
for many reasons, but the State’s passion
for events was certainly among them,
according to Rasheed. “It’s a welcoming,
diverse, beautiful part of the world that
offers a complete Australian experience
without the crowds and frenzied pace of its
eastern neighbours,” she says.
RACECOURSE | ADELAIDE
"WE WERE IMPRESSED WITH THE WHOLE VENUE,
THE STAFF AND THE FOOD WERE SIMPLY FIRST CLASS.
THIS WAS THE FIRST EVENT WE HELD AT MORPHETTVILLE
BUT I DOUBT IT WILL BE OUR LAST."
Choose Morphettville for your next conference or meeting…
and prepare to be surprised, trackside.
08 8295 0199 | [email protected] | morphettville.com.au
www.cimmagazine.com Convention & Incentive Marketing, Issue 8, 2016 13