According to recent research released by Roy Morgan Research between January 2011 and December 2015, the proportion of Aussies who reported liking Chinese cuisine declined from 73.6% to 70.4%. While not a huge drop, it is the only cuisine in the Top 10 that lost, rather than gained, popularity.
“One of the benefits of living in such a multicultural nation as Australia is the huge variety of international cuisines available. Chinese continues to be the population’s favourite, which is not so surprising, considering that it’s been part of Australia’s culinary tradition since the Gold Rush, when Chinese migrants set up cookhouses in the goldfields.” Norman Morris, Communications Industry Director, Roy Morgan Research commented.
Mr. Morris went on to explain that in second place, Italian food is now enjoyed by 62.9% of the population, marginally up on 60.8% in 2011. In third and fourth places, Thai and Indian cuisine also gained in popularity over the last five years, while Mexican (42.6%, up from 38.5%) and Japanese (37.9%, up from 33.3%) appear to be on the up and up.

“Italian cuisine occupies a similarly well-established place in our hearts, having been popularised by post-war Italian migrants, while the other cuisines not only reflect the evolving ethnic make-up of Aussie society in the 21st century, but also cater to our ongoing obsession with all things food-related (the continued popularity of cooking reality TV shows being just one example of this)” Mr. Morris commented.
Across the generations Mr. Morris pointed out that the popularity of most of the cuisines in the Top 10 cannot be attributed to the Pre-Boomer generation. Pre-Boomers are dramatically less likely than the other generations to enjoy eating Italian, Thai, Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Other Asian, Lebanese and Greek cuisines. An above-average proportion of them like Chinese food (72.1%), and they inch in ahead of Gen X for French cuisine. Generation X is over-represented among Australians who like Italian, Greek, Thai and Lebanese. Gen Y, in contrast, are the group most likely to enjoy eating Japanese, Other Asian, Indian, Mexican and French food.