King Valley serves up winner chicken dish at Brown Brothers in Milawa
You’ll eat like a king at this famous King Valley dining destination — that is, if you try this winner dish.
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It’s one of Victoria’s greatest, if underrated, wine regions.
With the sweeping, soaring Alpine National Park of quintessential Australian bush that frames the rolling vineyards of prosecco, sangiovese and myriad other predominantly Italian-leaning vines, the King Valley is quite simply one of the most stunning parts of our state.
And one of the most delicious.
Whether it’s Sicilian-style feasting and views to thrill at Christmont, knockout pizza and a serious contender for Victoria’s best gnocchi at Dal Zotto or classic pub grub and authentic Nepalese curries in the beer garden at the Mountain View Hotel, no one’s going hungry around here, which is very much in keeping with the area’s Italian heritage.
And when in Rome …
Milawa is the gateway to the region, and a small-scale, free-range farm there produces arguably Victoria’s best chicken (bar perhaps Bruce Burton’s Sommerlad beauties at Milking Farm Yard) and chef Bodee Price is using that Milawa meat to make arguably Victoria’s best chicken dish ($40).
There’s corn in blitzed puree, juicy kernel and flame-charred form, the summery veg adding bursts of sunshine to a bed of fregola (a Sardinian pasta of small semolina dough balls) strewn with blackened onion weed seasoned with soy sauce.
But it’s the chicken that’s the hero with two generous tranches of breast that remain firm to the touch of a tine yet are wonderfully tender with a hint of grassy sweetness.
They are each draped in a gossamer sheet of rich lardo with dots of black garlic adding caramelised depth.
As pretty as it is perfectly executed, it’s the panacea to every awful industrially farmed chicken dish and heralds a new era for Milawa’s most famous destination, Brown Brothers.
For more than 130 years the Brown family has been making innovative, accessible, eclectic wines and put Milawa on the wine tour map.
Today the winery remains a popular destination for cellar door drops and road trip breaks, the pooch and kid-friendly grounds filled with bean bags to lounge on, the outdoor deck and rustic restaurant filled with tables getting stuck into Price’s more casual menu than that offered when it was the more formal Patricia’s Table.
That means you could now as easily and happily settle back with a platter of Victorian cheeses and a selection of charcuterie as a full three-courser.
Price (formerly of the city’s seafood serving The Atlantic) has taken over a patch of dirt behind the cellar door and is making the most of his kitchen garden — it’s why you move to the country after all — and is having fun making cheese and his own charcuterie and using eggs from that chook farm to make fresh pasta.
Emu is transformed into pastrami, the spiced slices of surprisingly mild-tasting meat come with fermented carrot and daikon, with saltbush crisps adding salty crunch.
Teeny tiny pickled onion weed flowers lift the lot ($19). A terrific wallaby tartare teams the creamy sweetness of the meat with funky garum (a fermented fish sauce), purslane and radish for freshness, the lot hidden under scales of crisp kipfler chips ($20).
There’s a clever east-meets-west side of dish of shaved spring zucchini draped over house-made stracciatella cheese, with puffed rice and fermented chilli bringing crunch and heat ($12). And though it needed more seasoning to properly shine, the fresh cavetelli pasta with more zucchini and squash from the garden and fresh ricotta is a suitable celebration of summer ($34).
Loads of technique on show with kingfish served with a processco velouté, a cannelloni alongside filled with scallop is as decadently delicious as the sauce is elegantly creamy, the lot brightened with pearls of finger lime ($42).
First of the season peaches from Glenrowan shine in fresh, sorbet and semifreddo from ($15), while a strawberry “soup” seasoned with punchy black pepper and powerful Geraldton wax is like taking an after lunch bush walk ($14).
And then there’s salted chocolate chicken skin, which is every bit as love-hate bonkers as it sounds ($3).
With lovely service, $30 bottles and $6.50 glasses of estate wine and a welcome ease to the offering — along with that knockout chicken — and lunch at Brown Brothers is the best it’s ever been. You’ll eat like a king.
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