Quarters at Hubert Estate restaurant review: The Yarra Valley winery restaurant the kids will love

Woodfire pizzas, wine on tap and a hill with excellent roly-poly benefits — this winery restaurant will impress both small (and big) kids at heart.

Kara Monssen

3 min read

October 18, 2022 - 12:00PM

Quarters, the new winery restaurant at Hubert Estate, is perfect for families and kids.

Food

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Six minutes.

That’s the time it took between ogling that ham and cheese pizza on Quarters menu and it landing at our table. Now that’s what I call fast food.

Not long after my first stringy mozzarella and sweet tomato mouthful, a bowl of crinkly golden wedges arrived. Eight minutes and counting.

Quarters is a fast game and you better keep up.

The stopwatch is ticking, but don’t worry you’ll get a warm reminder on arrival: “you’ve only got 90 minutes before the next booking.”

I get it. Set times help turn tables (and more moolah) to create a system that’s fair for all.

At Quarters this works a treat if you’re hoping to score a late lunch on the fly after a morning on the drink, and not so much if you want to settle in with a pinot in hand while watching the kids blow off steam.

Hubert Estate (formerly St Hubert’s for those playing at home) reopened in April after its mega $13m makeover thanks to the Ryan Hospitality Group.

The hospo giant already owns St Kilda’s new-look Prince Hotel, and quite notably turned a tired Mitchelton Estate into a ritzy wedding and restaurant destination.

Have the water ready — the spicy n’duja scallops will jump-start your tastebuds.

Now Gerry and Andy Ryan are trying the same tricks in the Valley, with plans to open the wine region’s first hotel next year, but for now it’s all systems go for Hubert Estate and its family-friendly restaurant.

It’s all shiny and new as you’d expect. Neat manicured lawns cleverly hide a cellar door and art gallery beneath a grassy mound, doubling as a design marvel and hill with excellent roly-poly benefits for the kids (and the big ones at heart).

About 120 sunny alfresco seats flank one side of the old tin tasting room turned massive shed restaurant, Quarters.

Inside, the far-reaching space plays the industrial modern card with plenty of natural timber and green olive-coloured accents. You’ll fit about 180 people in here and at 11.30am on this Saturday it’s already heaving.

Six minutes is the time it’ll take between ordering and pizza hitting your lips.

There are people everywhere, it’s kid-friendly with an order at the counter (or QR code for the tech savvy) and self-serving water and cutlery station kind of vibe. All booze (including wines and cocktails) are conveniently on tap and served in a tumbler.

That ham and cheese pizza ($26), made from sourdough levin, is crisp and salty where it counts, the cheese a little scant but is acceptably tasty given how quickly it was slapped together (that’s two minutes in the oven, another four to prepare and serve).

At the 10-minute mark our chicken wings ($14) land, golden crumbed, fried and a touch overcooked, yet saved by a wicked flavour bomb of black garlic aioli and pickles.

Those scallops ($7.50 each) are a mixed bag – some tender, others chewy but most about the size of a 20c coin and smothered by the spicy force of crimson ’nduja (that’s spreadable salami) and chilli oil that’ll punt-kick you into next week. It’s a lot teetering on unbalanced, but my dining companion loves it.

Burnt butter rockling and caper berries.

Executive chef Michael Smith (ex-Tonka, Coda) throws a lot of seafood around, some better than others. Slips of kingfish ($17) hidden beneath fennel and trout roe are nicely flavoured, enhanced by grapefruit segments and bright herbs, while those octopus skewers ($23 for two) are cooked in the sous vide until tender, charred over coals and teamed with a power match nobody is talking about: black olive tapenade and green pepper. Damn it’s good. The rockling ($38), lapping in a yolk-coloured burnt butter and caperberry sauce, is trademark firm, riddled with bones, yet the flavour’s good.

My only gripe was the wine: I wish you could order a bottle of non-tap vino in the restaurant (in a proper glass) instead of chugging those generic red and white options made from “Yarra Valley grapes.” I guess that’s what the cellar door is for.

Quarters is easygoing; a well-oiled machine programmed to “get em in, get em out”.

And if you’re here for a good, not a long time, there’s nothing wrong with that.