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One of Australia’s strongest, most enduring archetypes is the country pub. So much so that mythologising them is almost a national obsession: these are the shining beacons on worn-out main roads, the cure for unquenchable thirsts and insatiable hungers.

It’s a rare occasion that reality meets expectations, but in the past decade or so, it’s a fact that some of the most memorable, singular restaurants in the country have been in the pubs and clubs of towns with populations as high as 100,000 and as low as 332.

The Milton Hotel. Little Picket in Lorne. Restaurants that are (or were) contemporary yet grounded, run with sympathy for the fact that the scratches on the tables and the stains on the carpet can add rather than take away. Usually, in the good ones, it’s down to fresh owners trying to build something real and connected. A place locals will return to and travellers will pin on their maps. If they’re lucky, a talented chef might even quit the city and come along for the ride.

In Bangalow, that place looks a lot like You Beauty. In Matt Rabbidge and Luke Sullivan, it has owners who’ve made this kind of community-led Northern Rivers venue their specialty since restoring The Eltham hotel in 2019. But then the chef isn’t just any chef, it’s Matt Stone, one of the country’s foremost low-waste practitioners, who along with Jo Barrett flipped the script on local, sustainable cooking at Oakridge in the Yarra, before going closed-loop at Future Food System in Melbourne’s Federation Square.

Since moving here in 2021, Stone has revelled in putting down roots. In his kitchen, cultured kefir butter with fluffy focaccia is grassy and sweet. Ricotta coalesces slowly from big batches of whey. Cream comes from a co-op, milk comes from local legend Deb Allard, wild foods from forager Peter Hardwick. Stone’s twice-weekly runs to Byron Farmers Market inform the menu.

Technically, You Beauty isn’t a pub – not in a licensed hotel sense. The site was an Italian restaurant before The Eltham crew took over. But the community board pinned with pennants and ticket stubs, the verandah for nursing schooners and the lamb roll with mint sauce on the specials board say otherwise, and give it a sly sense of having been this way forever – if you can’t find an old pub, make one.

Squint at the fit-out, the twee kangaroo logo and the sheer terribleness of the name, and You Beauty doesn’t exactly scream Good Food Guide Regional Restaurant of the Year. Take the menu the wrong way, and it reads like something you might find at a tourist trap in The Rocks: crocodile, barbecued prawns, lamb ribs, 𝄒roo, steak, chips.

But the kangaroo stamped on the top of the plates here has a tail that just keeps going, wrapping all the way around the border and right back up to the top. This is a reclamation. Cultural cringe come full circle, to the point where in last year’s Guide, it was a deserved winner.

The 𝄒roo dish? It’s a skewer of wild-shot red kangaroo loin, grilled fast to retain the juice and bounce, then smeared with roasted cashew. Wrap a hunk in a betel leaf, add some pickles, douse it in fish-garum “crack sauce” (more a nahm jim) and it’s a plate for the here and now. The crocodile? Try tail blitzed with soy, ginger and coriander, smeared onto a baguette and fried in a sesame crust a la prawn toast.

The barbecued king prawns, meanwhile, are peeled around the abdomen, then charred, glazed in snapper-bone stock and dusted with seaweed powder. Tear off the head, suck out the goo, then dip and drag the bits through finger lime butter sauce, all elegance and pop.

If this sounds high-grade, it’s because it is. But one of the finest qualities of You Beauty is that Stone never lets his gifts get in the way. All his hallmarks are here, but they’re hidden behind the trappings of a corner pub, obscured by glowing golds, subtle greens and wood panelling. Engage with it, and it’s plain to see, but walk in for a counter meal and you’d never notice, at least not until the crocodile toast takes a bite out of you.

In temples of high gastronomy, produce-led menus can often feel abstract, a function of the chef seizing creative control and diners submitting to their vision. This kind of cooking is admirable, but it’s also probably easier than convincing the tradies to go along with it in the neighbourhood public house. You Beauty’s great achievement is walking that line.

There are chips, but they’re dusted with Aleppo pepper. Lamb ribs, but they’re topped with saltbush chimichurri. Steak is a hulking sirloin, but it’s drenched in koji gravy made on inoculated tachiminori rice, a Japanese upland variety, grown locally. (That same rice, incidentally, is turned through those wild greens for a main course, shock-green under snow-white flecks of ricotta.)

Sure, scrawled by-the-glass specials prop up a wine list that squeezes chilled beaujolais, Georgian skin-contact and Aussie project wines onto one page. But an analogue sound system keeps things real, and waiters – a mix of villagers and backpackers – can pull schooners of Common People pale ale with the best of them.

Stone has gotten married since moving to the Northern Rivers (his partner, Alanna Sapwell-Stone, baked the first batch of You Beauty’s Jameson flans for dessert) and is mentoring several kitchens’ worth of talent. He’s also prone to jumping behind the wheel in the annual Bangalow Billycart Derby. Life is good, the pub is full, the people are happy. Maybe that’s what the name’s about, in the end. Say it with me.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.