We looked to LA’s taco trucks and Bangkok’s food carts, and we longed for that same gritty urban ritual of eating world-class, cheap-as-it-comes fare from a tricked-up truck. But when Australia officially launched food trucks in 2009 something was missing, says the nation’s first food-truck proprietor, Rafael “Raph” Rashid.

“We wanted the immediate culture of street food. We wanted the cream, but we didn’t have any milk,” says Rashid, owner of Melbourne trucks Beatbox Kitchen, Taco Truck and All Day Donuts. “These things take a long time, culture and soul. They don’t happen overnight.”

Fast-forward almost a decade and food trucks are a regular fixture on the streets of Melbourne, while last year the City of Sydney increased its 50 licences to 100, which it says will ensure an influx of trucks in the city this year. But it’s in the suburban sprawl that the “cream”, the cultural dynamism, is really turning up kerbside, thanks to an evolution and a savviness that belie this casual mode of dining.

There’s no room for average in 2018, says Morgan McGlone of Belles Hot Chicken, which launched its first food truck in Melbourne in March.

“Just because it’s a food truck doesn’t mean we care less,” he says. “It’s not a novelty. It has to be as good as if you went to the restaurant.”

This month, the sixth national outpost of Belles opened in Sydney’s Darling Square, but in taking his chook to the streets McGlone wants to reach a different audience. 

“Taking it into industrial areas, into the suburbs – we can’t do that with bricks and mortar. We can drive up, have better contact with people who can’t get to us,” says McGlone, who partnered with hospitality group 100 Burgers for the truck’s launch at Northcote’s Welcome to Thornbury food-truck park.

The exponential rise of UberEats and its ilk threatens restaurant-going, says McGlone. The truck is a way to reclaim control from increasingly popular delivery services. “We need to think of new ways to get people off the couch. People can get restaurant food at home, delivered. But that’s a problem for us;
it’s never going to be the same quality.”

Read the rest of the story, published in delicious. on Sunday magazine, here.