Pinctada Resort Honoured

Just over a year since its opening in August 2009, Pinctada Cable Beach has been honoured by the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) as offering Australia's Best Resort Style Accommodation.

The prestigious award was announced at the AHA National Awards for Excellence presentation ceremony before 500 industry leaders at Sydney's Westin Hotel in September. Pinctada Cable Beach's signature restaurant SELENE Brasserie was also a finalist in the category for Australia's best restaurant in the accommodation division of the awards.

Pinctada Cable Beach, the flagship of Pinctada Hotels & Resorts, is a five-star spa resort in Broome, the western gateway to the unique Kimberley region of northwest Australia.

Marilynne Paspaley AM, Founder, Owner and Managing Director of Pinctada Hotels & Resorts, said she is both delighted and stunned by the honour.

"To be recognised by the AHA as offering Australia's best resort style accommodation is a great and unexpected honour, particularly as it comes just over a year since we opened," Marilynne said.  "I am also delighted that SELENE Brasserie was named as a finalist in the restaurant award category. There were 10 finalists in this category, representing some of the finest dining establishments in Australia. To be included among them is again a great honour and deserved recognition for the Pinctada kitchen brigade and wait staff as well as our consulting chef Greg Malouf of MoMo who designed our menu to suit the Broome climate and fresh produce of the Kimberley region."

Special Mezza Offer

We've put together a special offer just for you!
Choose from a signed copy of one of Greg and Lucy Malouf's recipe books with a selection of two spices from the Malouf's Mezza spice range at our special 'Mezza' price.
To make your order visit our online shop here.

Pinctada Collects Two Awards

The Pinctada Resort in Broome's Cable Beach picked up two  AHA Aon Hotel Awards for Excellence this month. The resort's Selene Brasserie, with its signature menu developed by Greg Malouf, was the only regional finalist in the coveted Accommodation Hotel/Resort Restaurant Award category. To find out more about the awards visit www.pinctada.com.au

IRANIAN JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

Greg recently returned from a three week tour of Iran exploring its culinary traditions as research for a new book due out the end of this year. Greg and co-writer Lucy Malouf started their journey in Tehran then took off an extensive tour of Iran's regions.

On a 400 year old caravanserai near Yazd, Greg encountered this sweet pregnant camel and fed it some Naan sangak, the local stone bread. In the background of the photograph by Lucy Rush- brooke is the camel's private home. His keeper, Ali, stands nearby.
Saraban, a chef's journey through Iran will be published in November 2010 by Hardie Grant

Spotlight on Melbourne's Thriving Middle Eastern Food Culture

The impact of Melbourne's Middle Eastern community on its thriving food culture was the subject of a major feature in the prominent United Arab Emirates English language newspaper The National recently.  Including an interview with Greg Malouf.

Melbourne's most influential

Greg was recently nominated by the age (melbourne) magazine as one of 2009's most influential citizens for his ongoing contribution to the city's vibrant culinary scene.Tagged as 'the comeback king' Greg was praised for a stunning return to the kitchen at MoMo.

"Greg Malouf made a triumphant return to form at the most glamorous launch in post-GFC Melbourne: MoMo at the Grand Hyatt. ...His 'veiled quail' won dish of the year in The Age Good Food Guide Awards in September, though Malouf says he doesn't like to be "pigeonholed" (boom boom) by signature dishes, preferring a constantly changing menu of modern Middle Eastern."

Greg Malouf in Gourmet Traveller

The February 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller features an interview with Greg Malouf in a story about the rise of modern Middle Eastern Cuisine by Melbourne writer Michael Harden. Buy a copy to read all about Melbourne's 'sumac-spiced love affair'.

Good Food Guide Awards

The launch of the latest edition of The Age Good Food Guide included two hats for MoMo and the Dish of the Year award for Greg's veiled quali. Here's what the Guide had to say:

"Poetic in name and execution. Greg Malouf's elegant brand of Middle Eastern cuisine combines quail with a restrained chorizo and pinenut farce and wraps it in a parchment-like layer of vine leaves. Simple? Perhaps. But in a word, exquisite."