Canberra foodies have the chance to replicate their favourite meals from the capital’s eateries at home thanks to the publication of a new book.

Retired restaurateur and current The Canberra Times restaurant reviewer Chris Hansen spent countless months putting together Chefs Eat Canberra.

Described as “a cookbook and a guide to the best dishes the best chefs like to eat in Canberra”, it takes a retrospective look back at the local hospitality industry from the 1920s to now.

Mr Hansen told CW/CD he felt there was a need for the book because the quality of restaurants in Canberra in the past decade had exploded.

“The first line of the book is ‘Canberra wasn’t always this good,’ he said.

“I can remember back in the eighties you only had a choice of about three good restaurants, there wasn’t a lot.”

Flashforward to now and he said the city boasted an estimated more than 1000 eateries.

Mr Hansen said he credited the boom in eateries to several pioneers in the industry.

“You’ve got guys like Gus Armstrong in particular, when he opened eightysix (in Braddon) in 2013, he had a number of now highly regarded restaurateurs working for him and he really encouraged them,” he said.

“So, he has been quite pivotal.”

Mr Hansen also credited Kingston-based Jones & Co’s Soc Kochinos and Barton-based The Chairman Group’s Josiah Li as leaders in the field.

He said while the book’s history went as far back as the mid-1920s, he had memories from the 1970s.

“We didn’t know what quality was,” Mr Hansen said.

Two decades later and seafood started to be served at eateries.

“We couldn’t get really good quality seafood until Serif (Kaya) from Ottoman Cuisine started flying it in from Sydney and Western Australia three times a week,” Mr Hansen said.

You can learn more about the book and Canberra’s hospitality industry by visiting chefseatcanberra.com.

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