Gold Coast Food and Drink: A Dining Scene That Has Grown Up

The Gold Coast's food and drink scene, transformed from the predictable tourist strip restaurants of the Cavill Avenue precinct that fed the package holiday visitor of the 1980s and 1990s into the sophisticated and diverse dining culture that the city's growing permanent professional population and the elevated hospitality expectations of the contemporary tourist demand, has developed the restaurant and café infrastructure that a city of 650,000 people with the income levels and the food culture that the Gold Coast population brings from their points of origin in Sydney, Melbourne, and the international cities that the migration waves draw from. The transformation is visible in the quality of the independent operators, the diversity of the food cultures represented, and the wine knowledge that the best Gold Coast restaurants now bring to their lists.

The Broadbeach dining precinct, centred on the streets surrounding the Pacific Fair shopping centre and the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, has developed as the most consistent quality restaurant destination on the Gold Coast, the critical mass of the good operators and the accessibility of the precinct for the Broadbeach and Mermaid Waters residential population and the convention centre visitors creating the footfall that the restaurant economy requires to sustain the quality investment. The Broadbeach food market and the precinct's independent café culture create the daytime activation that the evening restaurant trade builds on.

The Burleigh Heads food and café scene, developing in the surf town village character of the James Street and the streets around the Burleigh beach headland, has become the Gold Coast's most characterful food destination, the combination of the independent roasters, the healthy bowl cafés, and the quality evening restaurants in the surrounding streets creating the food community that the surf culture and the residential lifestyle migrants from Sydney and Melbourne have built. The Burleigh café culture's alignment with the healthy and active lifestyle that the Burleigh surf community embraces creates the food identity that the precinct's best operators sustain.

The craft beer and spirits scene that has developed on the Gold Coast, including the Black Hops Brewing at Burleigh Heads and the Gold Coast Distillery, provides the local producer dimension that the food and hospitality culture requires for the 'drink local' narrative that connects the consumer to the producer community. The Gold Coast's craft beer scene's growth, reflecting the national craft beer movement's penetration of the coastal tourism market that the Gold Coast represents, creates the brewpub and the taproom infrastructure that the visitor and the resident both use for the craft experience alongside the cellar door and the bottle shop alternatives.

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