Ethicare Resourcing
The bush capital

Food & the everyday

Canberra Guide · Chapter 8 of 9

Canberra’s food culture runs on two things the city has in surplus: a very well-paid, well-travelled population, and roughly ninety diplomatic missions’ worth of culinary influence. The result is a small city that eats considerably above its population.

The weekly shop

Woolworths and Coles cover the territory comprehensively, ALDI is the cheapest full shop, and Canberra’s town-centre plan means most people have a proper supermarket and a handful of good independents within their own district rather than a single central market to travel to. Farmers’ markets run on Saturdays in several town centres, led by the long-running one at Exhibition Park.

No single market, many good ones
Each town centre carries its own decent grocery options; there’s no one central market the way Adelaide has.
The diplomatic effect
Specialist grocers and restaurants cluster near the missions in Yarralumla, Forrest and Kingston, well beyond what the population alone would support.
Braddon and Kingston
The city’s two liveliest strips for cafés, small bars and restaurants, both an easy walk from the inner districts.
Public-service rhythm
Lunch and after-work trade follows the parliamentary and public-service calendar; Canberra feels different in a sitting week versus the summer break.

Flavours of home

For a small city, Canberra covers a lot of ground: Asian grocers and restaurants cluster in Dickson, a food hub with some of the best-value Asian dining in the country; halal butchers and grocers are available across several districts; and the diplomatic community supports specialist ingredients — from Middle Eastern to South American to Southeast Asian — well beyond what the local population would normally sustain. Kingston and Manuka carry the Italian and Mediterranean end of things.

Eating, drinking and the wine on the doorstep

Braddon’s converted warehouses and Lonsdale Street carry the small-bar and craft-brewing scene; Kingston Foreshore and Manuka do the smarter end of dining; and the Canberra District wine region — Murrumbateman and the country around Lake George, thirty to forty minutes north — produces well-regarded cool-climate riesling and shiraz, and doubles as the city’s favourite long-lunch destination.

The everyday, in one list
  • Weekly shop: any of the town-centre supermarkets; the Saturday market at Exhibition Park for produce.
  • Best-value dining: Dickson’s Asian food hub.
  • Specialist ingredients: Dickson (Asian), Kingston & Manuka (Mediterranean), and wherever the diplomatic community shops for its own.
  • A cellar-door lunch in Murrumbateman at least once a season.

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