One Bite Wonders

Now you see them, now you don't. Michael Harden looks at the rise of the snack attack and why Australia is obsessed with all things deliciously small.

- One Bite Wonders

Snacks are having a moment. Once mostly associated with fatty, salty things served in bars to soak up booze and stimulate thirst, snacks are now colonising a larger slice of real estate on Australian restaurant menus. Boosted by the ever-changing flexibility of dining habits and a generation of chefs eager to embrace their inner snacker, guilty pleasures is becoming a work of art.

“I’ve always been a snacker,” says Aaron Turner, chef and co-owner of Geelong’s Igni restaurant, where every meal begins with a tableload of snacks that range from a bite-sized shred of chicken skin topped with cod roe and smoked ocean trout to house-made guanciale wrapped around tiny grissini. “I don’t eat a lot in terms of lunch and dinner but I snack all day. It’s something I picked up while I was working and travelling around Spain. It’s the way I prefer to eat – small, intense bursts of flavour.”

Spain’s tapas bars have been influencing Australian menus for a while now, taking the snack baton from the previous, formal French-style of amuse-bouche, hors d’œuvres and canapés. But modern Australian snacks take their cues from all over, from the street food of places like India, Mexico and Vietnam to the traditions of meze and aperitivo. The one or two-bite morsels are designed for palate impact, playfulness and as a way of scene setting for the rest of the meal.