How Australia’s Asian food courts from Sydney to Cairns are winning over diners with their inexpensive dishes and Oriental styling
- Many Australian food courts are being converted into pan-Asian food alleys that wouldn’t look out of place in Seoul, Singapore or Bangkok
- Customers can choose dishes from an array of options, including Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean and Chinese
The woks spit as a rich scent of ramen broth, barbecued pork and sizzling beef fills the air, while customers compete for a seat in a crowded melange of tiny food shops.
Lit with red paper lanterns, this alley could be anywhere in Asia, from Seoul to Singapore, Bangkok or Beijing, but it’s in a shopping centre in the Australian city of Cairns.
A new trend in Australian food courts has emerged in recent years: areas built to resemble Asian alleyways. Inexpensive and atmospheric, they have proven hugely popular with Australian diners, who seem content to jostle for a table after paying a small price for a plate of food.
The growing Asianisation of food offerings in shopping centres across the country is replacing the earlier phenomenon of Americanisation, which was led by McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut.
Asian food now dominates in many Australian food courts, dining precincts and food halls. Hanging hill roofs, red brick walls and pagoda-style arches set the scene in a good number of them.
Dubbed “destination dining” by developers, the pan-Asian-style dining spaces began spreading across the east coast capitals Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne a decade ago, and recently reached Cairns in far north Queensland.
