Pt Leo Estate is a wine food and art park like no other
THERE’S nothing ordinary about Pt Leo Estate, a $50 million, decades-long realisation of a world-class art and dining destination, writes Dan Stock
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HER name is Laura, and she’s here to look over you. His name is Luke, and he’s here to challenge you. Her name is Ainslie, and she’s here to look after you. His name is Phil, and he’s here to cook for you.
Together, they make up the core of Pt Leo Estate, the peninsula’s stop-what-you’re-doing-and-get-in-the-car-right-NOW addition to the region’s grapes-with-good times destinations.
For this is a winery restaurant the likes of which we haven’t seen.
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Yes there’s an extensive cellar door from which you can taste the range of estate wines that come from the expanse of vines you see beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.
And yes, there’s an extensive food offering — whether oysters Kilpatrick and wallaby pies on the terrace, or a full three-course meal in the 110-seat restaurant.
And there’s also art. For Laura and Luke are sculptures — the latter, an arresting geometric evocation in bronze of man by English artist Tony Cragg; the former, a monumental work by Catalonian artist Juame Plensa — that are highlights in a 50-strong sculpture park.
There’s nothing ordinary about this $50 million, decades-long realisation of a world-class art and dining destination.
Whether the umbrella-offering, golf buggy-driving staff ready to silently whisk you from the car park up to the door, or the ancient boab tree playing bossa nova; the sweeping, dramatic entry of the Jolson-designed building or the spectacular views across the vines and sculptures to Western Port beyond, Pt Leo is a carefully considered cornucopia for every sense.
It’s accessible luxury on every level, which extends to the restaurant that offers pan-generational appeal. There are perms and prams and perma-tans all happily ordering another glass of pinot from the cellar or fresh ginger beer from the bar, and tucking into food that’s a celebration of the peninsula that walks the local-produce talk in boots stitched with flavour.
Phil Wood has moved down from Sydney, where, for the past seven-odd years he was the cooking brawn behind Neil Perry’s branding brain at Rockpool (and then Eleven Bridge) keeping it at the pointy end of that city’s best.
Here he’s created an entree-main menu of bright, quietly artful plates that team technique — an astonishingly ethereal souffle, say — with a tongue firmly planted in cheek (see: tuna rolls with fabulously low-rent cocktail sauce).
Not afraid of big flavours, Phil dances along a tightrope with bold restraint, with no better example than a salad of crab and potato. Generous with chunky crab and classic dill and gherkin-dressed potato, the salad comes studded with crunchy potato slivers and on a sauce intense with brown meat. At once powerful and refined, it’s simply perfect ($19.50).
That carrot souffle is as pretty as it is sublime, a vibrant orange cloud flecked with arrestingly blue scampi roe dressed in a carrot butter sauce that’s lick-the-plate good ($19).
An evocative beetroot pancake is the most tweezer-y dish on offer, but the tiny daubs of local goat’s cheese, beetroot puree, lemon curd and trout roe all play a part on the pretty purple canvas that’s ever-so-slightly chewy ($19).
While you will have to pay for it ($3 a serve) the wood-baked bread is excellent, deftly handled with crackingly good crust, and you’ll probably want some to sop up the equally excellent sauce of butter and scallop that comes with the St Leonards snapper. It’s as expertly treated and cooked piece of fish I’ve eaten this year; the dish eye-poppingly delicious ($36).
Though there’s also no faulting a beautiful O’Connor’s rib eye that’s all charry crust, blushing chew and lemony native spinach ($49).
Ainslie Lubbock (Pei Modern, Attica, Royal Mail Hotel) guides the ship through the storm of serving a restaurant that’s been full since opening its doors six weeks ago. Leading a team of professionals, it’s smart-casual service, pitch-perfect for the surrounds, with both a twinkle in the eye and a spring in the step while never missing a beat.
It’s clever, refined at every turn and includes the all-Victorian wine list (save three champagnes) with good (sometimes expensive) drinking from around the state should you venture off the estate.
And there’s no better way to get a sense of that estate and walk off lunch through the sculpture park than with those grapes in the glass in hand. You will want a walk, as there’s strawberries and cream many ways ($16) and an elegant apple and rhubarb tart ($15) you
won’t want to miss.
Come the new year, a fine-dining restaurant will complete the Pt Leo puzzle, offering another level of dining and service. But for most people, for most occasions, for most budgets,
what the restaurant now delivers is a true class act.
PT LEO ESTATE
3649 Frankston-Flinders Rd, Merricks
Phone: 5989 9011
Open: Daily from noon (dinner Thur-Sat)
Rated: 16/20
Go-to dish: St Leonards snapper
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