The way we were

The baton of Australia's best dining city keeps getting passed back and forth. Up until the 1970s, Melbourne led the way with a solid European-based restaurant scene spurred on by post-war immigration and the 1956 Olympic Games, which brought a bevy of talented European chefs who made Melbourne their home.

Then in the '80s and '90s, Sydney stepped up to the plate, enjoying a restaurant boom fuelled, in part, by Melbourne chefs moving to Sydney, including Tony and Gay Bilson, Damien Pignolet and Janni Kyritsis. Had we used the term then, they would have been called ''new-gen'' (and how they would have hated it.)

After the economic endorphin high of the 2000 Olympics, Sydney dining started to lose its momentum, spontaneity and sense of a shared food culture. Times were tough and it was every chef for him and herself. Dining out ran out of steam.

In Melbourne, in the past two decades, a whack of money has been invested in the infrastructure along the river bank, culminating in a big-budget call for high-end chefs for the Crown casino complex. It hurt the smaller operators and became something of a ''can't beat em, join em'' scenario, but ultimately boosted dining figures across town, especially when licensing laws were loosened up, allowing Melbourne's bar-food culture to bloom.

Out of it came a rash of enterprising, energetic young chefs who had been trained well but wanted to do their own thing - another ''new-gen'' - and did it by cleverly building on the European bistro, small-bar heritage.

Now, it's harder to say. The two cities still have their own character, but the style and content are getting more similar, they're growing together, not apart. I know that sounds like I'm sitting on the fence, but I think about my favourite restaurants and I'm torn. I can't wait to go back to Moon Under Water, Cafe Di Stasio, France-Soir, Dandelion, Cumulus, Flower Drum, PM24, Maha and MoVida, but then I think about Sydney and Porteno, Mr. Wong, Apollo, Rockpool, Sepia, Kepos Street Kitchen, Quay, Three Blue Ducks, Momofuku Seiobo.

Increasingly, Melbourne chefs are opening in Sydney (Frank Camorra) and Sydney chefs in Melbourne (Guillaume Brahimi, Neil Perry, Rob Marchetti). Not only that, but Melbourne designers Pascale Gomes-McNabb and Michael Delaney are really stamping their look on the Sydney dining scene as much as in Melbourne.

In both cities now the energy is palpable, and if you look at the arrivals in the past six months, things are only going to get better, with smaller, more individual operators.

Having said that, two of my top-10 Australian restaurants are in Hobart and Brisbane.

Terry Durack has been a restaurant critic in Melbourne, Sydney and London for 30 years.