Coffee

I often have to explain to people that the best coffee you can get is in Australia. They can’t quite believe it. It’s starting to happen in the UK and there’s some great emerging coffee in Scandinavia, but they are not inspired by Italy, they are inspired by Australia.

The bar is being raised in London but people are truly obsessed by coffee in Australia.There’s a reason why you don’t really see many Starbucks here. There’s a quality and expertise to coffee. There’s knowledge around the process, such as the right beans, the milk temperature, the grinding techniques.

People are on autopilot in Australia when it comes to coffee. It’s so ingrained in the culture to drink it. And people will pretty much spit it out if it’s no good.

Australians will pretty much spit their coffee out if it's no good. Photograph: Steve Cavalier/Alamy Photograph: Steve Cavalier / Alamy/Alamy

Tim Tam slam

I’d certainly like to bring the Tim Tam slam to the UK. I was introduced to it a couple of months ago and was amazed by it. It’s basically where you bite the corners off the ends of a Tim Tam and then suck tea through it, like some sort of straw.

I tried it in a very public way too, on MasterChef. On one of the master classes they said “we know you love your tea, how about this?” I then had to do the Tim Tam slam in front of an audience. It absolutely worked, first time. I was fairly proud of that.

I really don’t know if there’s any UK equivalent to suck tea through. A Penguin maybe? Or a Kit Kat? The choice would be key.

Beef

Australia has the best beef in the world. You’ve got Wagyu in Japan of course, but that’s a very specific type of beef. In Australia, there’s a huge range of beef, grass-fed and corn-fed. There’s great beef from Tasmania and there are great people like David Blackmore.I’ve seen how good it is and it really ups the ante. There’s Angus and Hereford in the UK but Australia has really done a lot of work on the quality of its beef.

With steak, it’s all about how the animal is raised and slaughtered. At the end of the day, the chef just has to flip it onto the grill. The important bit is the process before that. Back at the Mandarin, we have to search and fight hard to get the best possible beef.

High street food

It seems that every other high street place in Australia is a charcoal chicken place. Good charcoal chicken places would be a good addition to the high streets of the UK, rather than just having McDonald’s and KFC.

There are lots of good pop-up places on high streets in Australia, especially in Melbourne – cafes that seem to be aimed at young couples, and that don’t cost much money to set up.

When it comes to fast food in Australia, a lot of it is Asian. It’s happening a bit in London, but if you want Ramen, there’s a lot more of it here – those noodle places are everywhere.

Families eating together

Families eat together more in Australia. Photograph: Ashley Mackevicius/AAP Photograph: Ashley Mackevicius/AAPImage

Apparently, many families eat together five times a week in Australia. It’s just once a week in the UK. If I could change anything back in the UK, it would be that. Culturally, it seems very different, and something the UK could improve on.

The first book I wrote was Family Food, which has a lot of recipes which families could use. I don’t know what else you can do other than encourage people and show them the kind of food they could be making together at home

• Heston Blumenthal has recently launched a partnership with Coles supermarket to develop a range of products