Spoilt for choice: Australia’s surprising foodie capital

Think of Hobart and you could be forgiven for looking south – next stop, Antarctica. But the Tasmanian capital is the same distance from the equator as Rome or Barcelona. So why not create a dining venue where those latitudes rule?

Entering Maria restaurant, on Hobart’s waterfront near the MONA ferry departure point, is an experience in itself – a white tunnel moves you through time and space, delivering you to the Mediterranean. The first course is a riff on tapas with an Australian accent: little pearls of cured wallaby meat, some octopus to nibble, and fluffy focaccia with a crisp, salty top served with a duo of dips – macadamia hummus and tirokafteri (spicy feta).

Maria restaurant – big, bright and airy.Credit: Fiona Vail

With that comes a rosé from Greece. If retsina ruined you for Greek wine, have another try – this 2023 Lacovino Aparto rosé is refined and delicious. It keeps coming. We go to Piedmonte in Italy for a chardonnay to pair with oysters topped with a “wild fennel pollen mignonette” – a magic dust of flavour. Alongside them is some crudo and garlic bread.

The oysters, fresh as you like, are presented on some white pebbles. It’s a beautiful look. “Where are the oysters from?” I ask my waiter. “Oh, they’re from Bruny Island,” she says. “And the pebbles?” I ask, thinking they’ll be sourced from a remote, sun-bleached shore in the state’s wild south-west. “Oh, probably Bunnings,” she says with a smile. That’s the vibe here. Accomplished but with a hefty dose of fun.

Those oysters and their pebbles.Credit: Fiona Vail

“I wanted to keep that fun, exuberant level of service that’s a little bit more flamboyant than what you would expect of high-end dining, with the music quite loud and everything quite relaxed,” says chef-owner Christian Ryan.

“And food with strong, punchy flavours and also that championing of Tasmanian produce in cuisine where it may not generally be found.”

Although they look to Tasmania and Australia first, they aren’t slaves to local produce. Olives might come from Tasmania, but also Italy and Greece (where the feta is sourced).

Ryan is a busy chef-owner. Above Maria is sibling restaurant Aloft, run by the same team.

“Aloft is Tasmania meets South-East Asia and the greater Asian region, and Maria is like the whole north Mediterranean, with a leaning towards Indigenous Tasmanian and local produce,” he says.

“Space-wise, upstairs at Aloft it’s quite sleek and dark with sharp edges, and we tried to go the complete opposite at Maria – big and bright and airy with summery colours. It feels like you’re in a completely different space.”

Christian Ryan (right) with restaurant manager Hedley Monks.Credit: Jon Gazzignato

Just as the food varies in origin, so does the wine. Tasmanian drops feature strongly, as you’d expect, but – particularly for the regulars looking for something else – they go beyond. “I wanted to find, with [restaurant manager] Hedley Monks, some wines you probably couldn’t find anywhere else in Hobart. So that’s a selling point for locals and for tourists.”

Ryan was born and bred in Hobart and did his apprenticeship there, then worked overseas. He returned, fortuitously, around the time MONA opened, energising tourism in the state.

“Somehow I fell into a head chef role at a cafe, which led to my business partner and I opening Aloft – and that’ll be 10 years this year.

“People used to come to Hobart, stay one night, eat at one restaurant, and fly back out again. We used to get that all the time. Now you can be here for a week and you’re spoilt for choice.”

Indeed you are. About 30 minutes out of town and a long way from the waterfront is the award-winning Agrarian Kitchen, on the vast grounds of what was once a hospital for the mentally ill (or to use the term of the day, a “lunatic asylum”).

The grounds and buildings give huge scope to an imaginative restaurant enterprise. The vegetable garden, for example, is within the walls of what was once the exercise area for the “criminally insane”. The high walls that kept those people in now keep veggie raiders like wallabies and possums out.

It’s also the site for the first course at the lunch adventure that is The Agrarian Kitchen. You check in to the restaurant as usual and are shown to your table, but then you’re guided through the kitchen to greet the chefs, then up the garden path past growing produce and into the greenhouse.

Agrarian Kitchen co-founder and chef Rodney Dunn wanted to reinforce where the food served was coming from.

There, you’re seated at a small table with a glass of sparkling wine and a vegetable trio for starters that changes with the season (ours was turnip and zucchini miso, radish and burnt leek, and kohlrabi and hemp seed).

“Our business started with the garden as the centrepiece,” says Rodney Dunn, who co-founded The Agrarian Kitchen with his wife, Séverine Demanet. They wanted to reinforce that connection.

“We realised it was something of a problem because people would come to the restaurant and dine, and it doesn’t matter what you tell people, you have to be able to show them so they fully understand where something is coming from and what is actually behind those walls. It just felt like the right step to be able to implement something where the diners were experiencing that garden as well.”

When you feel it’s time, you wander past the fruit and berry orchard back to your table to be greeted by another course that includes the burrata you saw the chef stretching just 30 minutes ago. And on it goes. It’s worth using the bathroom if only to stroll past the shelves of preserved and fermenting produce.

The Agrarian Kitchen dining room.

There are three gardeners on-site, and part of their work is to turn the restaurant leftovers into a resource. “Either you throw it away, and it adds to the problems [of waste], or you turn it into a source of fertility for the next lot of vegetables,” Dunn says.

Still in Hobart and still hungry? Head to Hamlet for breakfast, brunch or lunch. It’s a social enterprise cafe with a focus on training people with disabilities – they work in the cafe and in the associated condiments and catering business.

The count will be bigger now, but when we visited, Hamlet had delivered 45,592 hours of training to 752 people. And they serve a ripping omelette.

The details

Stay
Lumiere Lodge in West Hobart is a plush, three-bedroom Victorian house renovated and restored to luxury. It has a gourmet kitchen with a big window overlooking the garden and glass doors leading to a courtyard. From $650 a night for two (or $1050 for six), plus cleaning and service fees. See airbnb.com.au

Eat
Maria and Aloft open from 5.30pm for dinner Tuesday to Saturday. Set menu is $130 per person at Maria, $140 at Aloft, plus drinks. Brooke Street Pier, Hobart. See restaurantmaria.com.au; aloftrestaurant.com

The Agrarian Kitchen’s restaurant opens Friday, Saturday and Sunday for lunch. Set menu is $195 per person ($220 from April 1), plus drinks. The walk-up kiosk is open on the same days. See theagrariankitchen.com

Hamlet is open Monday to Friday from 7.30am to 2.30pm. See hamlet.org.au

The writer was a guest of Lumiere Lodge and the restaurants mentioned. A member of his family works at Maria.

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