Food orders from top restaurants can now be made for delivery interstate

If we know one thing, it's that feelings run high when it comes to comparisons between Sydney and Melbourne.

Both cities lay claim to an excellent hospitality scene, though the harbour city often excels at dining with a view while the city of laneways is widely considered the coffee capital. They each have their claims to fame.

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There is no doubt the rivalry, while friendly, is also very real. So how will each city feel now that hospitality food deliveries can be made interstate and instead of ordering from your local, you can, in fact, order food from Sydney's top restaurants to be delivered to Melbourne in less than 24 hours, and vice versa?

That's just what is happening with food delivery service CoLab. Excitingly, while we can't wait to see the Melb/Syd dichotomy unfold, deliveries aren't just for those two rival cities. The operation is set to expand Australia-wide to include Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and regional areas of New South Wales and Victoria. 

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This isn't an UberEats or Doordash kind of deal, though. Two of Australia's culinary marketplace platforms, ChefPrep and Co-Lab Pantry, have announced they have teamed up to launch CoLab, with the food delivery service allowing customers to shop for pantry staples, restaurant-prepared ready meals, drinks and fresh produce and have it delivered to their door nationwide. 

The service offers over 1,500 products from 150 top restaurants, cafes, growers and makers for delivery and calls itself 'a celebration of food and the people behind it'.

Currently the delivery is next day between Sydney and Melbourne, but will eventually offer same day delivery options too. It's a wild world we live in when you can order from Melbourne's Chotto Motto or Sydney's LoDe Pies & Pastries to have them turn up in another state the next day. 

"We want to make it stupidly easy for people to do their weekly food shop from home," said Josh Abulafia, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of CoLab.

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"No lines, no aisles, no stress, and just as easy for restaurateurs and food and beverage makers to create and scale their ecommerce offering." 

Chefs already in the line-up include dessert queen and celebrity chef Anna Polyviou and Jawin Rratchawong from The Great Australian Bake Off, who are respectively launching their Anna Polyviou cookie dough and Kneady Boi 'Unfortunate Cookies' on the site this week. But the list of restaurants and producers is long and delicious.

The new interstate delivery service will also be offering exclusive collaborations and limited edition runs from small batch creators and cult classic brands like Crying Eyes Chilli, Miss Trixie Drinks Tea, Butter Sydney, Fancy Hanks, Wonderbao, Cannoleria, Salt Meats Cheese, Birdsnake Chocolate, and The Standard Wine Co.

It's a hefty list of recognised names on the food scene. 

The new business is the result of ChefPrep acquiring Co-Lab Pantry earlier this year. While the new venture has just unveiled its plans for national delivery services, it has also already announced plans to launch into the international market within the next 12 months.

While Sydney and Melbourne get used to taking each other on for interstate deliveries, we can't wait to see how Australia takes on food delivery internationally.