Best restaurants in regional Victoria that are worth the roadtrip
Some of the state’s top chefs have made a home for themselves in regional Victoria, with a number of culinary gems emerging away from the bright lights of the city. Here are a few that are worth making the roadtrip for this weekend.
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SOMETIMES the most rewarding dining experiences are those a little off the beaten path.
A number of the state’s top chefs have made a home for themselves in regional Victoria, developing innovative menus and making creative use of their spaces away from the hustle and bustle of Melbourne.
You may need to set aside an afternoon and the drive might be a little longer, but these regional eateries are well and truly worth the trek.
Here are some of the best regional restaurants to feature in the delicious.100 list of Victoria’s best restaurants.
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OAKRIDGE
Gosh, it’s good. Being seated in the dining room with postcard vine vistas and the light pouring in, deciding on a something-for-everyone estate wine, and then the main act — Matt Stone and Jo Barrett’s brilliant food.
Barrett’s caraway pastry is a thing of swirly beauty, teamed with a salad of smoked trout, caviar, herbs and sour cream that’s as pleasing on the plate as the palate. Ditto the dehydrated persimmon discs hatting the Berkshire pork to lend sweet-tart counter to the just-cooked meat.
Desserts celebrate the sweet-savoury divide, with fried parsnip ‘noodles’ and pear pieces doing wonderful things with a luscious hokey-pokey ice cream.
Oakridge
864 Maroondah Hwy, Coldstream
9738 9900
oakridgewines.com.au
Must-eat dish: Smoked trout, caviar, cultured cream, caraway croissant
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chefs: Jo Barrett and Matt Stone
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Thu-Mon
Instagram: @oakridgewines
BYO: No
Separate bar: Cellar door — Oakridge Estate wines only
LAKE HOUSE
Thirty years young, the Lake House dining room remains the quintessential country manor.
It’s comfortable opulence and understated elegance makes a long lunch — or longer dinner for those staying in-house — a celebratory affair.
Whether you opt for four choose-your-own courses or settle in for the full tasting experience, you’re best warned not to fill up on the house spelt sourdough with smoked butter — it’s a challenge, for it’s so good — but you’ll want to ensure room for each one of the petit fours to end.
Lake House
4 King St, Daylesford
5348 3329
Must eat: Ocean trout with fennel custard
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Alla Wolf Tasker
Price: $$$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Fri-Wed; dinner daily
Instagram: @lakehousedaylesford
BYO: No
Separate bar: Yes
IGNI
It begins with a round of snacks. It ends, some hours later, with exquisite tarts.
In between, a meal at Igni in Geelong can be anything chef Aaron Turner wants it to be.
Only Igni is going to whet your appetite with crunchy saltbush chips, spears of cured wagyu, and lardo-wrapped grissini sticks, even before you start your five- or eight-course degustation. And only Turner — a sage-like presence in his semi open kitchen — is inclined to drench blackened broccoli heart in ‘winter milk’, then double down with fire-roasted pumpkin and jersey cream.
Moodily lit, Igni is supremely comfortable but a seat at the bar by the woodfire grill is recommended if you want to see flames licking your honey-glazed hapuka.
Igni
Ryan Place, Geelong
03 5222 2266
Must-eat dish: Smoked duck, macadamia, endive
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Aaron Turner
Price: $$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Fri-Sat xx-xxpm; dinner Thurs-Sat xx-xxpm
Instagram: @restaurantigni
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
BRAE
This humble farmhouse in the Otways has become a magnet for food lovers the world over.
It’s elevated dining but never flouncy, with straight-up, affable service in a dining room that’s a joy to spend time in but understated enough to let the food speak for itself.
It might be the strangely successful yet simple combo of barbecued beetroot, fireball-orange roe and a wedge, cut at your table, of ridiculously good honey, straight from the farm hive, that pops and melts in your mouth.
Or the “nose-to-tail” chicken winging it to you in several interesting ways, or the strawberry gum ice cream intensified with passionfruit.
Brae
4285 Cape Otway Road, Birregurra
03 5236 2226
Must-eat dish: Barbecue beetroot with farm honey and roe
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Dan Hunter
Price: $$$$$
Bookings: Essential
Open: Lunch Fri-Mon 12-2pm, dinner Thu-Sat 6:30-8:30pm (booking times)
Instagram: @braerestaurant
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
PT LEO ESTATE
Who would’ve thought that a $50 million winery-cum-modern sculpture park in Merricks would be Victoria’s most accessible, most exciting, most welcoming and yes, most delicious, venue?
From the sweeping, dramatic entry of the Jolson-designed building to the sweeping, dramatic views across the vines and sculptures to Western Port beyond, Pt Leo is a carefully considered wine-dine good time that has every sense covered.
But for easy, roll-up-your-sleeves, lick-your-fingers fun, the main restaurant is our favourite to return to. It’s where a wood-roasted crumpet comes topped with drunken chicken so good you’ll be ordering another after one bite, and a vibrant carrot souffle cloud comes dressed with arresting scampi roe.
There are wallaby pies and fried mussel sandwiches and a pretty beetroot pancake that eats as well as it Instagrams.
Pt Leo Estate
3649 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks
03 5989 9011
Must eat dish: Wood-roasted snapper, Hawkes Farm braised broccoli, fennel cream
Chefs: Phil Wood and Joel Alderson
Price: $$/$$$
Cuisine: Contemporary
Bookings: Yes
Open: Pt Leo Restaurant: lunch daily; dinner Thur-Sat // Laura lunch Thur-Sun; dinner Thur-Sat
Instagram: @ptleoestate
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: Yes
WICKENS AT ROYAL MAIL HOTEL
The Grampians have never looked better from Dunkeld’s Royal Mail Hotel. It’s new, ravishingly beautiful fine dining room — rebadged as Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel — now has the view to complement Robin Wickens’ exciting, seasonally attuned food and a cellar of worldly wines curated by sommelier Matthew Lance.
What hasn’t changed is Wickens’ devotion to homegrown produce. The leek and pine mushrooms with your salt fish brandade come from the Royal Mail’s vast kitchen garden. Same goes for those mustard greens and turnips with the local lamb, the brussels sprouts and chestnuts with red deer, the parsnips with steamed whiting.
Five- and eight-course menus are offered, matched if you wish with exceptional drops on display in the walk-in wine room.
Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel
98 Parker Street, Dunkeld
03 5577 2241
Must-eat dish: Steamed King George whiting, parsnip, kohlrabi juice
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Robin Wickens
Price: $$$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Sat 12-2pm; dinner Wed-Sat 6-9pm
Instagram: @royalmailhotel
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes at Parker Street Project at Royal Mail Hotel
UNDERBAR
Open two nights a week and seating just 12 people, with its lack of signage, skin contact-y wine list and a no-choice, multi-course, hyper-local menu that changes weekly, Melbourne’s most zeitgeisty restaurant isn’t even found in Melbourne.
At Underbar Derek Boath — one-time Per Se chef — shows off the best of the region in technically clever dishes that never forget to be tasty.
A simple amuse of chicken consomme poured over truffled brown butter might be the comforting opener before late summer fruit from the neighbours’ trees surround pancetta-wrapped chicken ballotine, while blushing lamb on white garlic cream is attended to by peeled tomatoes that positively pop.
It’s fine dining without the fuss.
UNDERBAR
3 Doveton St North, Ballarat
Must eat dish: Sweet corn and spanner crab
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Derek Boath
Price: $$$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Fri-Sat nights
Instagram: @underbarballarat
BYO: No
Separate bar: No
Wine list: Nicolas Hinze
SARDINE
Mark Briggs is winning sardine haters over, one pan of Lakes Entrance beauties at a time, at his smart Paynesville restaurant of the same name.
Briggs (ex Vue de Monde) has made a Gippsland Lakes-change from the city within a stylish dining room that’s toasty warm in winter, open-windowed breezy come summer.
On the ever-changing menu, fisherman’s stew is generously strewn with the good stuff — prawns and bugs and clams and snapper on our visit — in a saffron-bright sauce of sunshine that’s mop-every-drop good, while roasted fish of the day might come with fat diamond clams, smoky bacon, garden peas and pillows of buttery mash.
And those sardines? Fresh off the boat and into the pan, a half dozen whole fish are perfectly cooked, the flesh without a hint of the fishiness effortlessly falling from the spine.
Sardine
65 Esplanade, Paynesville
5156 7135
Must eat dish: Lakes Entrance sardines
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Mark Briggs
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Tues-Sun; dinner Tues-Sat
Instagram: @sardineeaterybar
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
DOOT DOOT DOOT
Under the bling of Doot Doot Doot’s dramatic 10,000-light installation, Saturday lunch is in full swing as Melbourne takes a mini break.
Not every dish lands, but when they do, it’s bang-the-table good. Like the prawns, memorably smoky and charry-fleshed from the grill, paired with a silken pumpkin cream and offset by tangy pops of finger lime. And the fillet of Murray cod given excellent texture from a polenta crust, all the better for being crowned with saltbush crisps.
If dessert is the white chocolate cube, its innards a swirl of berries, cream and coconut yoghurt, you’ll go home happy.
DOOT DOOT DOOT
166 Balnarring Rd, Merricks North
5931 2500
Must eat dish: Prawn, finger lime, pumpkin cream
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Guy Stanaway
Price: $$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner daily, lunch Sat-Sun
Instagram: @jackalopehotels
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
MIDNIGHT STARLING
For the best duck à l’orange this side of the Seine, head straight up the Calder to Midnight Starling. Here you’ll find Steven Rogers putting his experience gained in Parisian kitchens to good use across a menu that comes in both a la carte and degustation form.
There’s plenty of crusty baguette hot from the oven to slather in good salty butter. You’ll need it, because the sauces are wipe-the-plate good, such as a classically decadent sauce champagne that moats a perfect piece of hapuka topped with crisp whitebait, or a deeply delicious dark number, filled with cured hock depth, that surrounds the pork neck with caramelised apple.
There’s a wine list that looks to Europe and central Victoria in equal measure and service that’s city sharp but country warm.
MIDNIGHT STARLING
60 Piper Street, Kyneton
03 5422 3884
Must-eat dish: Duck à l’orange
Cuisine: French
Chef: Steven Rogers
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Sun 12-3pm; dinner Wed-Sat 5:30-8:30pm
Instagram: @midnightstarling
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
PORT PHILLIP ESTATE
In a gourmet wine region not short on exciting newcomers, Port Phillip Estate is as evergreen and impressive as ever.
Its curved bunker-like digs are Bond movie-cool, there’s fire-roasted Dory under a doona of smoked mussels and green sea herbs, cut with preserved lemon and capers. Berkshire sucking pig is served as a crispy-skinned square of belly, ready to slick with rich morcilla puree in a crispy-shelled croquette and countered with apple and artichoke.
Desserts are frisky and fresh, prettiest of them the caramelised apple dome housing white chocolate mousse and ringed by an oat crumble.
PORT PHILLIP ESTATE
263 Red Hill Rd, Red Hill South
03 5989 4444
Must-eat dish: Caramelised apple dome
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Stuart Deller
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Wed-Sun, dinner Fri-Sat
Instagram: @portphillipestate
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: No
PARINGA ESTATE
Welcome to the Mornington Peninsula’s quiet achiever.
Whether you opt for two or three courses, you want to try Paringa’s smoked wallaby tartare with wasabi creme fraiche, the artfully plated roasted duck with crisped taro, and whiting fillets which are deftly layered across creamy potato and a wakame fish mousse.
Beckett cuts loose with playful desserts, notably olive oil carrot cake gussied up with vanilla frosting, carrot orange gel and leaves of blazing red rosella.
Best of all, Paringa does all this without denting your budget. It’s a real find.
PARINGA ESTATE
44 Paringa Rd, Red Hill South
03 5989 2669
Must eat dish: Whiting and Jensens Red potato
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Adam Beckett
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Wed-Sun, dinner Fri and Sat
Instagram: @paringaestate
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: No
PROVENANCE
A new room has given new life to Michael Ryan’s Japanese-accented fine diner in Beechworth, which now looks as smart as the cooking and wonderful regional wine list.
You might order the Japanese oden of beef tongue, slivers of grill-branded meat in an earthy mushroom stock, and follow with ruby-breasted duck amped with furikake and served alongside a shredded duck congee finished with umebosi.
You should definitely begin with fried cured garfish and eat too much sourdough with smoky miso butter.
Finish with an elegant crostoli that sandwiches the finest apple dice and sharp raspberries. And drink deeply from the wine list — it’s an on-point collection of this boutique region that produces some of the state’s finest.
PROVENANCE
86 Ford St, Beechworth
03 5728 1786
Must-eat dish: Maremma duck-roasted breast, brown rice congee, umeboshi
Cuisine: Japanese
Chef: Michael Ryan
Price: $$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Sun; Wed-Sat dinner
Instagram: @theprovenance
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
MUSE AT MICHELTON
With generous, dexterous cooking that celebrates the region without too much fuss — but with a whole lot of flavour — that’s a bit of a bargain to boot, Muse is making Mitchelton famous. Again.
Backing up the local supplier farm-to-fork talk with dishes that include a brilliant Bald Rock pork cutlet swaddled in fennel seed crumb and served with excellent apple mustard, and a standout roast chicken with fat hunks of bacon and crunchy crostini with a few foraged pine mushrooms thrown in for good measure. Head-on, deboned Murray cod served with decadent beurre blanc is at once delicate and rich, while smoked brisket with mushroom mustard is a hearty and heartening way to start.
MUSE AT MICHELTON
470 Mitchellstown Rd, Nagambie
5736 2225
Must eat dish: Bald rock pork cutlet
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Dan Hawkins
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily
Instagram: @mitcheltonwines
Winemaker: Travis Clydesdale
Wine list: Laurent Rospars
Owners: Gerry and Andrew Ryan
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
DU FERMIER
“Sometimes I worry we won’t meet expectations, that people will be disappointed,” says Annie Smithers of her humble dining room in Trentham, where it can take months to secure a table.
But lunch at Du Fermier really is like being welcomed into someone’s home. Someone’s home, mind you, that has a stocked cellar of lovely local drops and beautiful Burgundies and a damn fine cook in the kitchen.
The longtime champion of central Victoria now has a 23-acre property on which she grows the bulk of the produce she then transforms into four daily-changing courses of comfort executed with élan.
You might be served a refreshing salad or excellent charcuterie, followed by a platter piled high with the best roasted pork and a heap of crisp crackling, fabulous roasted potatoes, sharp red cabbage and earthy sweet beetroot puree, but there’s always abundant excellent house-baked bread on hand to slather with too much salted French butter and expertly treated cheese, sometimes from here, often from there.
Book now to avoid disappointment.
DU FERMIER
42 High Street, Trentham
03 5424 1634
Must-eat dish: Cream of chicken soup
Cuisine: French
Chef: Annie Smithers
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
O pen: Lunch Fri-Mon 12pm
Instagram: @du_fermier
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: No
CAPE
Young chef Josh Pelham in the kitchen, putting experience gained at London’s two-Michelin-starred The Square and time heading Scott Pickett’s flagship ESP to good use.
For all sorts of wow, start with chicken wings, deboned and stuffed with a chicken mousse and served with a rich roasted consommé. It’s an elegant opener that a delicate parsnip velouté with roasted chestnuts rivals in the comfort stakes.
A large, single raviolo filled with scallop and crab mousse served with seafood bisque and a cloud of champagne foam sweetly sings of the sea, while kangaroo tartare topped with puffed beef tendon, sticky egg yolk and diced pickled pear is tricksy but tasty.
Desserts are a highlight. Poached quince surrounded by noodles of chestnut mousse and served with spiced pumpkin plays with earthy, savoury sweetness, while the artful Main Ridge cheesecake with strawberries many ways is as pretty as it is delicious.
CAPE
RACV Cape Schanck Resort
Trent Jones Drive, Cape Schanck
03 5950 8038
Must-eat dish: Stuffed chicken wings
Chef: Josh Pelham
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner daily 6-8:30pm
Instagram: @theracv
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: Yes, Lighthouse Lounge
SOURCE DINING
For country-style generosity, it’s best to go straight to the source. Source Dining, that is.
The menu is filled with accomplished bistro classics that are big on flavour, technique and portion size means no one’s leaving hungry.
A brilliantly vibrant, orange-sweet carrot risotto with whole baby heirloom carrots and Holy Goat cheese is such a win for the veg team, carnivores can almost overlook the excellent aged Inglewood beef with classic dauphinoise potatoes and not miss out.
With hazelnut-crumbed brains next to perfectly pink slices of rump, Rockwood Cottage lamb is shown off to excellent effect, especially when teamed with crisp parsnip and sharp red cabbage on the plate, while expertly cooked fish comes pan-tanned atop a Mediterranean braise of olives, tomato and octopus for the real catch of the day.
SOURCE DINING
72 Piper Street, Kyneton
03 5422 2039
Must-eat dish: Rockwood Cottage lamb
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Tim Foster
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Thurs-Sun 12pm; dinner Thurs-Sat 6pm
Instagram: @sourcedining
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
MONTALTO RESTAURANT
Vines and vegetables, olives and art ... Montalto is a one-stop shop for all things bright and beautiful on the Mornington Peninsula. But the estate’s rustic restaurant is its number one attraction, and rightly so.
Chef Gerard Phelan’s high-calibre cooking has a farmhouse freshness about it, no surprise given the luxuriant herb and vegetable garden at his disposal, and on our visit two dishes clearly embody his robust, home style. One is a tile of beetroot black pudding ornamented with parsnip, carrot and rapini leaves, the other, dry-aged duck in the company of mandarin and purpling radicchio.
A concise wine list encourages the drinking of very fine Montalto chardonnays and pinots, and capable staff rarely miss a beat. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy.
MONTALTO RESTAURANT
33 Shoreham Road, Red Hill South
03 5989 8412
Must eat dish: Dry aged duck, radicchio, mandarin
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Gerard Phelan
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Fri-Tues 11am-5pm; dinner Fri-Sat 6pm-10pm
Instagram: @montaltovineyardandolivegrove
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: Cellar door
CAPTAIN MOONLITE
It was a big win for the Surf Coast when chef Matt Germanchis and his partner, front-of-house pro Gemma Gange, upped stumps from Melbourne to open Captain Moonlite.
Germanchis (ex-Pei Modern, Movida) clearly knows what it takes to make a great dish, yet opts to keep it simple here, letting local ingredients – particularly seafood – shine bright with a sense of place in a menu that’s at once cool, casual and classy.
Opening bites might be mini crab and chive-filled doughnuts dusted with celery salt, with bigger moves including a hefty, crumbed pork cutlet, its richness countered with sweet and sour radicchio, or a just-cooked snapper fillet jostling with white beans and greens in a light and lovely calamari broth.
Like its namesake bushranger, the wines are Victorian, and that unbeatable view from the Anglesea Surf Lifesaving Club – plus nearby accommodation in the works – makes this one of the best year-round coastal hangouts.
CAPTAIN MOONLITE
100 Great Ocean Road, Anglesea
03 5263 2454
Must-eat dish: Scallops, celeriac & curry leaf
Cuisine: European
Chef: Matt Germanchis
Price: $
Bookings: Yes
Open: Breakfast and lunch Fri-Mon 8am-3pm; dinner Thu-Sun 5:30pm-10pm
Instagram: @captain_moonlite
Licensed: yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: yes
HOGGET KITCHEN
With its glorious views across the valley of vines to lush green paddocks dotted with Black Angus quietly going about their business, there are few better places to while away an afternoon than at Hogget Kitchen. Here in the stylish country dining room, chef Trevor Perkins champions the best of Gippsland produce, ably backed up by top drops from trailblazing winemakers Pat Sullivan and William Downie.
Gamey rabbit boudin blanc might crown an excellent risotto studded with artichoke crisps for crunch, though for Sunday lunch it’s hard to go past a generous homely roast of Gippsland white dorper lamb with whole sweet potato. Quince and apple pie with Jersey ice cream is equally comforting.
Service is smart, value is great (three courses are $65), and that view is unbeatable.
An oft-unsung region has found its hero to deliver a wonderful treat. Set the GPS to Warragul
HOGGET KITCHEN
6 Farrington Close, Warragul
03 5623 2211
Must eat dish: Gippsland lamb
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Trevor Perkins
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Breakfast Sun 8am; lunch Wed-Sun 12pm-3pm; dinner Wed-Sat 6pm-11pm
Instagram: @hogget_kitchen
Licensed: Yes
BYO: No
Separate bar: Yes
POLPERRO
To one of the peninsula’s more subtly picturesque and beautiful dining rooms, chef Michael Demagistris has recently brought his bag of tricks, honed at his short-lived but acclaimed diner, Mount Martha’s East.
At Polperro in Red Hill, he’s adding modern flair – see his signature nitro caramel popcorn that comes ‘steaming’ to the table – and beach herbs and gels to a menu that spans six choose-your-own courses brought by a young but well-briefed team.
A fat, wobbly scallop cooked with seaweed in XO butter might begin a procession of small plates that includes elegant kangaroo tartare seasoned with mustard and gerkins and finished with grated yolk; wasabi-spiked mayo that cuts through excellent crunchy fried quail; and croquettes hefty with chorizo.
Along with owner Sam Coverdale’s estate wines, the short but worldly list has a winemaker’s prints all over it, with excellent drinking at all levels. With fires and blankets for winter and expansive deck for summer, Polperro is a destination for all seasons.
POLPERRO
150 Red Hill Road, Red Hill
03 5989 2471
Must eat dish: barramundi with tom yum broth
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Michael Demagistris
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Wed-Mon 12-4pm, dinner Fri-Sat 6-9:30pm
Instagram: @polperrowines
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
EZARD AT LEVANTINE HILL
The choppers are still out front, waiting to ferry high roller customers back to their city digs, but everyone else reaches Ezard at Levantine Hill by car. Make sure you have a designated driver. Winemaker Paul Bridgeman produces exceptional chardonnays and pinots in this dramatic corner of the Yarra Valley and a meal in Levantine’s Signature Restaurant is incomplete without them.
You have two set menu options – five ($135) or eight ($195) courses (plus matched wines) – and the domes and plinths that defined last years’ degustation have been replaced by stylish ceramics more suited to Teage Ezard’s increasingly Japanese-style fare. The day we dine there’s finely shaved kingfish with buttons of green edamame, burnt onion dashi with salt-baked kipfler potatoes and miso enoki mushrooms with duck breast.
EZARD AT LEVANTINE HILL
882 Maroondah Highway, Coldstream
03 5962 1333
Must eat dish: Kingfish, yuzu, edamame, pickled kohlrabi
Cuisine: Modern Australian
Chefs: Teage Ezard and Karl Wulf
Price: $$$$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Wed-Mon 11am; dinner Sat 10am-10pm
Instagram: @levantinehill
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
TARRAWARRA ESTATE
They come for the art - displayed in a marvellous purpose built museum - and the wine, sampled in a state of the art cellar door.
Now visitors to Tarrawarra Estate are embracing its restaurant again. Handsomely refurbished, with a new chef (Mark Ebbels) making best use of the estate’s expanded kitchen garden, this superbly situated dining room is serving food worthy of winemaker Clare Halloran’s celebrated pinot noir and chardonnay.
Ebbels’ winter menu impressed with its high colour, big flavours and emphasis on vegetables. A soused rainbow trout starter was ornamented with beetroot and black lime. Rare kangaroo, served ruby red, came tumbled with shiitake mushrooms and celeriac. And crispy pork belly was buoyed by Tuscan kale and turnip. Dessert could well be Tarrawarra’s trump card. Let’s hope the kitchen sticks with its modish chocolate mousse, artfully displayed on a swirl of strawberry gum.
TARRAWARRA ESTATE
311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Yarra Glen
03 5957 3510
Must eat dish: Rare kangaroo, broccoli, celeriac
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chef: Mark Ebbels
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Lunch Tues-Sun 11am-5pm
Instagram: @_TarraWarra_
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Cellar door
MASONS OF BENDIGO
If you’re one of the legion who turn to desserts before deciding on dinner, set the GPS to Bendigo. For here, within a stylish dining room in the heart of the gold rush city you’ll be served a platter of no less than 10 tastes – fairy floss-topped ice cream, cracking-crusted brulee, coconut-rolled roulade, popcorn-crowned parfait and more – that’s one of the state’s sweetest full stops.
This is Masons of Bendigo, where the sweets are a treat but it’s the celebration of this region – and it’s producers – that gets top billing.
Plates are packed with tastes and techniques and highlights across the large menu are many. McIvor Farm’s excellent pork – transformed into morcilla, fillet, crisp-belly and breaded shoulder – is a stand out, though Rockwood Cottage Lamb with black olive caramel is equally ambitious and completely delicious.
Drinks continue the celebration of local heroes, both in the bottle and in a can. Whether sugar or spice, it’s all things nice at Masons.
MASONS OF BENDIGO
25 Queen St, Bendigo
03 5443 3877
Must eat dish: Masons dessert tasting plate
Cuisine: Contemporary
Chefs: Nick and Sonia Anthony
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Tues-Sat lunch and dinner 12-3pm, 6-10:30pm
Instagram: @masons_of_bendigo
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: No
THE INDEPENDENT
Puffing Billy almost terminates at the front door of The Independent in Gembrook.
But day-trippers expecting to find tea and scones in this one-time garage are in for a surprise. The Independent flies the flag for Argentina, an unexpected sight among the mountain ash and ferns, and is delighting customers with lime-cured scallops, flaky pork empanadas and cinnamon doughnuts.
Owner and chef Mauro Callegari rules the open kitchen and offers two fixed price options, but going a la carte lets you wander further afield, sharing small and medium dishes including palm heart ceviche and smoked maple carrot, before tackling the ‘platos grandes’.
Slow-cooked Gippsland lamb shoulder is now a signature at The Independent, but our serve of grass-fed short rib, grill-blistered and frilled with fat, was a monster-sized marvel.
Pity about the service. On a busy weekend, dishes arrived out of sequence and were rarely hot enough. The drinks list has improved, with plenty of non-alcoholic options to bolster those beers. But if you’re still yearning for Devonshire tea... hop back on that train.
THE INDEPENDENT
79 Main St, Gembrook
03 5968 1110
Must eat dish: Beef short rib, chimichurri and potato
Cuisine: Argentinian
Chef: Mauro Callegari
Price: $$
Bookings: Yes
Open: Dinner Wed-Sun 5:30pm, lunch Fri-Sun 12pm
Instagram: @theindependentgembrook
BYO: No
Licensed: Yes
Separate bar: Yes
MITCHELL HARRIS WINE BAR
Ballarat is having another Eureka moment, this time on the food and drink front.
Mitchell Harris Wine Bar, in an old brick and bluestone building, joins a growing throng of progressive eateries in the heart of the gold rush city.
And thanks to the vision of winemaker John Harris, the awesome cellar here – a portal to the wines of central and western Victoria – is matched by hugely appealing food suited to bar snacking and leisurely dining.
Our visit saw punters grazing on impeccably prepared terrines and charcuterie; golden potato pizzas ornamented with asparagus; and the best Peking duck bao you’ll find outside of Melbourne.
Best of all was the seriously sticky twice-cooked pork belly with chilli caramel sauce. To go with that? It’s got to be a glass of the 2016 Mitchell Harris shiraz.
MITCHELL HARRIS WINE BAR
38 Doveton Street North, Ballarat
03 5331 8931
Must eat dish: Twice-cooked pork belly with chilli caramel sauce
Cuisine: Wine bar
Chefs: Jeremy Duxbury and Lyra Jalandoni
Price: $
Bookings: Yes
Open: lunch and dinner daily 11am
Instagram: @mitchell_harris
BYO: No
Separate bar: No
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