By Annette Shailer
South Australia venue Belmondo Ristorante has been crowned the winner of the Pepperjack National Battle of the Steaks Challenge.
After eight weeks of competition the grand final steak cook-off at Holmesglen in Melbourne on October 14, saw South Australia’s Belmondo Ristorante come up trumps.
Belmondo Ristorante owner, Joseph Spagnoletti, said it was an honour to win the competition and was extremely proud of everyone involved.
“Located outside Adelaide’s CBD means we have to work just that little bit harder and today we have been rewarded by this great win,” he said.
“It is great recognition for our venue – in particular our staff and full credit goes to our head chef – Michael Lapa for his enthusiasm and focus throughout this whole competition.”
The competition involved patrons voting online for their favourite steak venue with almost 4000 votes tallied.
The state finalists were the venues that received the highest number of consumer online votes with hotels and pubs featuring heavily on the list of 380 venues around Australia that were nominated.
Three out of the five state finalists were hotels, including The Wembley Hotel in Western Australia, The Gem Hotel in Queensland and The Moss Vale Hotel in NSW.
The state finalists flew to Melbourne for two days to compete in the steak cook-off, with Belmondo Ristorante taking home the title of Australia’s favourite steak venue and a $20,000 advertising package prize.
Two of the state finalists, the Wembley Hotel in WA and the Moss Vale Hotel in NSW, will be profiled in the November edition of Australian Hotelier.