Bush DeVine reviewed — Clare cellar door restaurant doesn’t quite live up to the view
THE stunning outlook and value-for-money dining at Bush DeVine have clearly made an impression with visitors in one of the state’s favourite wine regions.
THERE are two views not to be missed on a tour around the gorgeous Clare Valley, both illustrating the geology through which this unlikely bulge in the landscape was formed.
On one side, at the end of the Skilly Hills, a rocky platform in the Spring Gully Conservation Park looks west over a patchwork of farming properties around Balaklava, with barely a crease in the land before it disappears into the gulf waters.
Across the other side of the valley, the view to the east is also spectacular, sweeping across gumtree tops to a scene of paddocks and pockets of bush that spreads far and away. This time, however, the vista can be soaked up in a setting of far greater comfort and conviviality on the deck attached to the cellar door of highly respected Paulett wines.
This recent addition, to create a user-friendly, daytime eatery, has been money well spent, judging by the sellout lunches on both days of the weekend we visit.
The popularity of Bush DeVine Cafe can be attributed to more than that view, seen for the moment through the slight blur of the plastic blinds that keep the weather at bay.
Prices aren’t too painful. Service is friendly if sometimes flustered. And the food doesn’t present too many challenges, even allowing for its signature native ingredients.
Many of these are grown alongside the driveway that’s worth exploring before lunch. Founding chef Roger Graham, however, has taken a pragmatic approach and uses them to bring a subtle tang to a dressing, say, or an unexpected pop in a salad. It’s certainly not a boots-and-all adventure in the style of Orana and others.
This is a self-proclaimed cafe, after all, and it helps to bear this in mind if the service is a little patchy, or plating haphazard, even if the setting might seem it deserves something slightly more refined.
Staff move between pouring Paulett’s brilliant rieslings and other wines at the tasting bench to lend a hand in the dining room when required and my hunch is that the kitchen team might also be working with limited resources. In my view, some of the food certainly shows signs of being prepared ahead of time rather than cooked to order.
The first half of the menu is a selection of “Share the Love” platters, right up to a $30 selection of meats, cheese, bread, chutney and other condiments. The “Dukkah & Olive Plate” offers triangles of warm, fluffy ciabatta; marinated kalamata and green olives that would be better at room temperature; a generous heap of house-made dukkah with plenty of crunchy nut pieces and an undercurrent of spice; and a dish of pale, bland olive oil with a splotch of sweet/sour “bushies tomato syrup”.
A narrow, lunch-sized portion of barramundi has golden, crackled skin on top of a fillet that has cooked a smidgen longer than desirable. That is solved by a dip into a mayonnaise where flecks of strawberry gum and sea parsley add their own distinctive herbaceousness, as well as a combination of fried fennel strips and oyster mushrooms to the other side.
There’s no saving the chicken, however, that is said to be braised with lemon myrtle and ginger, but is presented unadorned with flabby skin and stewed meat flavour that suggests to me it’s been cooked some time ago. A warm salad of cauliflower, carrot and burghul has the visual appeal of a compost heap but, when picked apart, the roasted veg is fine and the pilaf has added crunch and a tangy lemon aspen dressing.
Desserts seem to be the kitchen’s strong point, both in the variety of options and how they turn out. A tower of bread and butter pudding layered with poached pears and mildly astringent riberries is a little beige for a magazine cover but, with the runny strawberry gum anglaise lapping at its base, is a sure winter winner. And a generous wedge of blood orange and lemon myrtle cake is dense, moist and, when doused with a punchy citrus syrup, drifts tantalisingly between sweet and sour.
The coffee is pretty good as well so perhaps the best idea for now is to avoid the crowds and call by for afternoon tea. The view will be just the same.
BUSH DEVINE CAFE
Paulett Wines cellar door,
752 Jolly Way (Sevenhill to Mintaro road), Polish Hill River; 8843 4328; paulettwines.com.au
OWNER Paulett family CHEF Roger Graham
FOOD Native cafe SHARE PLATTERS $8-$30 MAINS $20-$25 DESSERT $5-$9
DRINKS Paulett wines available by glass or bottle, as well as their locally brewed beer,
Last Minute Extra Special Bitter.
Open for
LUNCH Daily
SCORE 6/10