New $50 million Point Leo Estate and sculpture park lures Rockpool chef Phil Wood to Merricks
A CULTURAL and culinary haven opens at Merricks next week, bringing with it the chance to taste food created by one of the nation’s best chefs.
South East
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A CULTURAL and culinary haven opens at Merricks next week, bringing with it the chance to taste food created by one of the nation’s best chefs.
The $50 million venture will also have art lovers salivating with a sculpture park featuring major works by prominent international and Australian artists.
Point Leo Estate lured Phil Wood from his role as executive chef at Sydney’s Rockpool and Eleven Bridge to act as culinary director for the ambitious project.
Mr Wood moved to the Mornington Peninsula earlier this year and has spent the past few months sourcing the region’s best produce for the restaurant’s seasonal menu.
“The food concept is about promoting the region and where possible using what is available to us in a seasonal way,” he said.
“We are trying to make it unfussy but very flavoursome, where everything has a purpose. There is no unnecessary embellishment that doesn’t provide a certain flavour or work with core produce.
“Hero ingredients will be elevated and not overshadowed.”
The bistro style offerings will include wallaby pie, beetroot pancake with lemon curd and salmon roe, fried ricotta polenta with pickled fennel and Main Ridge goat’s caprinella and locally sourced wood-fired duck and beef.
Mr Wood’s team includes Ainslie Lubbock as restaurant manager, Joel Alderson as senior sons chef and Andrew Murch as head sommelier.
He said the aim was to make the 100 seat a la carte restaurant “a great place to come”.
“We want it to be a place where it’s a community restaurant; we don’t want it to be any national and exclusive restaurant.”
The 134ha property includes a 20ha vineyard and has been held by the Gandel family for about 25 years.
Until now it has been used as a private escape for John, wife Pauline and their family.
Visitors don’t have to dine at the restaurant or even drop into the cellar door to experience the sculpture park.
For an entry fee of $10 they can explore the park via a self-guided tour or by using a mobile app.
Park curator Geoffrey Edwards said adding art to vines had been done before, but “not with this absolutely single-minded brilliant vision and not on such a glorious site”.
The former director of Geelong Art Gallery and former senior curator of international and Australian sculpture at the National Gallery of Victoria, said that Point Leo Estate aimed to have international clout.
Pieces include renowned Australian sculptor Inge King’s gigantic steel Grand Arch and works by international figures including Tony Cragg, George Rickey and Zadok Ben-David.
Creations by celebrated Australian pioneers of modernism including King and Lenton Parr are also placed throughout the park.
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