Victoria is a great place to visit – just ask those who’ve been!

Tourism Victoria 18 June 2010

It's all very well for us to tell you how wonderful Melbourne is - that's our job. We love to talk about our cosmopolitan city: our strong food and wine culture; our vibrant laneway bars; our world class sporting facilities and our great arts scene. We love to brag about our calendar packed with cultural and sporting events and share with you the natural wonders of regional Victoria.

But we also know it means more when you read what others have said about us. So here goes:

"I'd rather eat in Melbourne than Paris...Everyone has a favourite place and in Australia, Melbourne is mine." - Anthony Bourdain, chef and TV personality, USA

"Lovely, laid-back Melbourne has something for everyone: family fare, local and international art, haute boutiques, multicultural dining, Australian and Aboriginal history, spectator sports, and pulsing, swanky nightlife." - TripAdvisor, Top 10 Food & Wine Destinations in the World 2010

"Melbourne has one of the most under-rated food scenes of anywhere I've travelled! It's a city that unites world cuisine, and a city that offers wonderful local produce and ingredients for use in the very inspired cooking of the very talented chefs." - Nancy Silverton, chef, Osteria Mozza, Los Angeles

"[Melbourne] is to Australia what San Francisco is to America. A city of diversity and culture, it's trendy and bohemian, with a mixture of stunning new and old architecture, in which Victorian edifices abound... It really has it all: weather, charm, culture and an amazing sports precinct. Melburnians are laid-back and welcome all cultures, hence the resulting cosmopolitan air." - Eleanor Goggin, Sunday Irish Independent

"Sydney's certainly brasher and louder, while Melbourne is more refined with a wider choice of cultural events and venues than its New South Wales rival - and I don't just mean the set of Neighbours... If the comparison makes old Mrs Melbourne sound staid and boring, nothing could be further from the truth. She may have spotless streets and keep her visitors safe, but boy, she also knows how to show you a good time." - Nick Craven, Daily Mail, UK

"Melbourne reminds me why I do what I do, why I enjoy all this food-related stuff." - Heston Blumenthal, chef at Fat Duck, UK

"Melbourne seems to constantly reinvent itself. Just when you think you know what's cool and where you should hang out, another area of town transforms itself into the next "it" place. Whether you're visiting for the first or 50th time, at least it looks like you'll never be in need of more places to eat, drink or shop." - frommers.com

"Melbourne is the culinary engine room of Australia...Melbourne is like New York. It has that culture of foodies that are finicky, hard-ass and very possessive about their city." - Gordon Ramsay, chef and TV personality, UK

"Melbourne is a calm, young, sporty, modern, classy city... I was so impressed with the city that I could not control the urge to wake up early in the morning and get out for a jog at the Botanic Gardens. During my whole stay there, it became a compulsion of mine to get out and run around the city." - Alex Atala, chef, DOM, Brazil

"Melbourne is very beautiful...Art galleries, museums, Shrine of Remembrance, the Botanic Gardens are all by the Yarra River, there is always something interesting not far away. When you are tired, just pop into the many coffee shops or small restaurants which spread all over the city to enjoy a cup of coffee and rest your tiring feet... Melbourne is the food capital. You can find cuisines from all over the world here, and with a very high standard... Just an hours drive from the city you can reach a beautiful peninsula or head up a mountain to see some untouched rainforest. If you have just one weeks' holiday, fly to Melbourne, you can have a very enjoyable holiday." - Benny Li, Hong Kong Headline Daily

"I love Victoria, it's so much more compact than other Australian states and easier to get around, and the Grampians is one of the loveliest corners. If you haven't been - get there." - Tony Wall, Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)

"Melbourne is the foodiest city in Australia. We are all food-mad, we have the best produce, the best coffee, the best cocktails, the best ethnic eating, and the best home cooks... Every great country has one city that is its foodie heart, its ‘stomach'. In France, it is Lyons, home to the bouchons, women-led bistros. In Italy, it is Bologna, home to pasta, prosciutto, parmigiano. In Australia, it is Melbourne." - Jill Dupleix, Australian food writer

"The state of Victoria has a well-deserved reputation as Australia's top golf area, as Baker-Finch pointed out, and it is increasingly becoming an international golf and tourism destination. There are some 375 courses in the state, including more than 200 within a 90-minute drive of Melbourne. ... It was a treat getting to walk and play Kingston Heath and Victoria GC, two sand-belt courses that renowned architect Alistair Mackenzie helped design." - Randy Youngman, The Orange County Register, MSNBC.com

"Lovers of fine pinot [noir] and chardonnay will be well-versed in the appeal of the Mornington Peninsula but there's so much more to this cool-climate region than can be gleaned from a label. Three days cruising through the vineyards just outside of Melbourne will ensure its real qualities come up in the glass." - Nick Ryan, Gourmet Traveller

"Chic, stylish and subtly flirtatious, Melbourne's wide streets and regular grid pattern, at first glance, appear to be organised along the same lines as other Aussie cities. Dig a little deeper and you'll discover an urban oasis with an edginess that courses through its labyrinth of intricate, intriguing laneways." - Sheriden Rhodes, Silver Kris magazine

"Only an hour's drive from Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula is one of my favourite foodie trails anywhere in the world. The seaside wineries are what make it exceptional, because it is not often one can enjoy vineyards with a beach view or where a scenic country walk can be made from one cellar door to the next." - Bakshish Dean, DNA India

For media enquiries contact Amy Skelding, Lucy Pennington, Debbie Hindle askelding@bgb.co.uk / lpennington@bgb.co.uk / dhindle@bgb.co.uk 0207 902 2990

Corporate website: www.tourismvictoria.com.au
Consumer website: www.visitmelbourne.com/uk

 

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