Coonara Springs, the Dandenongs’ oldest restaurant, reopens as a fine-dining beauty

AFTER a three-year refurb and restoration, the oldest homestead in the Dandenongs now has a new fine-dining lease on life, writes Dan Stock.

The Aga lamb with peas and feta. Picture: Kylie Else

IT was a plan so perfect. A lovely post lunch ramble in the crisp, blue-skied spring afternoon around gardens filled to bursting with blooming rhododendrons. No better way to spend a Sunday, I thought.

But instead the day was dark and dank, the drizzly fog that hugged the mountain no blanket to counter finger-numbing cold, the air heady with the smoke of open fires rather than flowers yet to spring into the season.

It was, of course, the perfect hills day to become reacquainted with the Dandenongs, and specifically to pay a visit to what’s touted as the oldest restaurant on the mountain. No, not the Cuckoo. Rather, the newly reopened Coonara Springs — est. 1893 — which has had a three-year refurbishment and comprehensive restoration, transforming the homestead into a space with a new fine-dining lease on life.

Established in 1893, the Coonara Springs Hotel has re-opened. Picture: Kylie Else

Having grown up around these parts, I’m well versed in the hills aesthetic. But thankfully, due to owner Sally Whitford’s fine eye, there’s not a dried hydrangea or doily to be seen. It’s instead a beautiful dining room, a soft palette of pink and grey combining with an open show kitchen that adds the right amount of farmhouse chic without tipping over into twee.

A gorgeous tan leather banquette runs the length of the 40-seater, under picture windows that frame the equally glorious seven-acre gardens and views through to Silvan Dam. Elegant cutlery, napery, a bookcase filled with all the right food names and fresh bouquets finish a scene that’s Country Style-refined.

Sally and husband Adam are behind this regeneration. Accidental restaurateurs (her background’s in design, his is advertising) they’ve employed Adrian Upward in the kitchen, who has returned after years cooking overseas, most recently at the Intercontinental Regency in Bahrain. His first job in the kitchen was at Fanny’s in the city, so it’s a full-circle return that can be spied in some of the cooking.

The Coonara Springs Hotel has been restored. Picture: Kylie Else

To wit: both high-end hotel and the ’80s are referenced in a main course of lamb. Aga-cooked meat, sticky and slow cooked and of deep flavour, is served with good mash, and homely spinach. But the meat, pressed into a medallion, is slightly fussy in presentation,
though positively freewheeling set next to five tiny cubes of feta each teamed with a sad, wrinkled pea, channelling a time in gastronomy most have happily left behind.

But the smokehouse on site is a welcome return to circa 2016, where it’s being put to excellent work, using apple wood to add hot-smoked depth to slices of salmon sliced satisfyingly thick. Baby potato halves, cress and capers fried crisp complete a perfectly enjoyable plate that’s well-pitched to the audience of families out for a nice lunch and memory lane-ing locals.

House butter also gets some time in the smokehouse, served alongside a salted version to be spread on bouncy, slightly stretchy sourdough and olive-studded loaf.

Comforting country cooking comes to the fore in an entree of confit duck, where a crisp-skinned leg plump with meat snuggles on a bed of buttery mash, a lovely sticky game jus tying a completely generous plate up in a rich bow. Likewise the corned beef, which benefits from more of that mash, with a silken veal veloute elevating a dish that doubles down on comfort with a cauliflower gratin.

The go-to dish; hot-smoked salmon.

The wine list is short in its construction, though — like the menu printed on thick card — oversized in presentation, another quirk harking to times past (though ladies do get their own with prices). It’s a somewhat random assemblage of a few Yarra Valley locals teamed with a Cotes du Rhone here, a Cape Town pinotage there; just a couple by the glass, but also a four-figure 25-year-old Sassicia. It could do with a keener casting agent.

But there’s a sense of sweet hospitality that pervades and is hard not to get swept up in, from the owners’ young son greeting guests at the door and taking their jackets, through manager Amanda Gagne’s soft, welcoming grace leading a small team that’s palpably proud of showing off this new addition to the area (or maybe they’re just thrilled they don’t have to wear a costume, as tends to be the trend around these parts).

The glorious pineapple tartin. Picture: Kylie Else

Desserts are solid renditions of sure-to-please classics. A terrific pastry and elegant anglaise elevate the pineapple tartin, while the billowy souffle has a good raspberry hit to its warm sugary cloud.

I like the all in one approach to the set menu on weekends — which includes mineral water, tea and coffee and a garden salad — but at $95 for three courses, or $75 for two, it’s certainly at the upper end.

It’s food not modern but well executed that fits within the surrounds well. The hills’ oldest restaurant has a new lease of life.

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Coonara Springs

129 Olinda Monbulk Rd, Olinda

Ph: 9751 1686

coonarasprings.com

Open: Lunch Wed-Sun; dinner Wed-Sat

Go-to dish: hot-smoked salmon

Rating: 13.5/20