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The Milton Hotel doesn’t look like your standard hatted restaurant. There are lots of hanging ferns and a few dried flowers, but the place is also packed with tradies on their third lager and grey nomads sharing charcuterie plates. Napkins are paper. Children’s high chairs are stacked against the wall. Our waiter is wearing shorts and a T-shirt and has just come from a surf down the road at Mollymook.

It’s the sort of place where you can rock a pair of double-pluggers and no one gives two hoots. I should’ve packed a pair of Havaianas for the occasion. What’s a South Coast holiday if you can’t eat a pile of fat prawns with your toes exposed? Specifically, at The Milton, five meaty, wood-fired prawns fragrant with curry leaf butter and tamarind ($35).

The food here is bloody great. Not in an “Oh, I like what you’ve done with the caviar and sea cucumber” kind of great, but the sort where you feel properly nourished and restored, and immediately book a table for the following day. Plans back in Sydney are cancelled so my wife and I can spend the afternoon with half a super-juicy chook marinated in a peri-peri sauce of real-deal heat and covered in bitter, floppy leaves of radicchio ($65).

Accompanied by a side of farm-crisp iceberg lettuce glossed by brown butter and a shallot dressing ($19), plus hot chips with house-made ketchup ($12.50), it’s everything a comforting country pub lunch should be. (Well, almost everything: the tomato sauce is a bit too sweet. Sometimes you can’t improve on perfect, which we can all agree is Rosella, right? Good.)

Originally known as The Commercial Hotel, the 1800s-built pub was relaunched by Ulladulla-born chef and professional bodyboarder Damien “Damo” Martin in late 2019. He refurbished the corner site with handsome timbers and a hardworking wood-fired oven and, with its view of the distant ocean, the back deck is one heck of a spot for sunset beers. Boy, can you have a top sundowner here, too, with Martin’s Dangerous Ales brewery making crisp lagers, tarty fruit beers and barrel-aged saisons on site!

You can also sit on a refreshing pisco sour ($22), shaken by venue manager Dean “Deano” Pitt, and a bowl of marinated olives ($9). From a short list of young, approachable and mostly natural wines, La Violetta’s Yé-Yé Rouge ($72), a red blend made in Western Australia’s Great Southern region, will see you through roast lamb rump pooled with a sauce of blitzed spinach and fermented onion ($48). The serve is so generous it could almost feed two.

A few walk-in tourists ask to see the menu, shake their heads and leave. Fair enough. If you’re in the mood to mangle a cheap schnitzel and gravy, The Milton is not the pub you’re looking for. And if you don’t count the small snack carte featuring an outrageously buttery chicken liver parfait with raisin chutney ($12), there aren’t many small-plate options, either. This makes the thick swatches of clean, raw Bermagui-caught yellowfin tuna ($30), punching with fermented-lime oil, even more essential.

Travis Olsson leads the kitchen when Martin is busy brewing, and the guy sure can barbecue a pork collar so that its sweet fat is perfectly set against orange and jamon-flavoured jus ($45). I would very much like to return for the wagyu rump with stout-spiked mustard ($48), and there’s a nicely gooey chocolate tart ($19.50) if you’re after something warm and sweet for dessert.

What’s a South Coast holiday if you can’t eat a pile of fat prawns with your toes exposed?

Some caveats: the music can be loud, even during an otherwise quiet service. Your enjoyment of lunch may depend on your appreciation of Gorillaz and The Strokes. The pub can also become especially noisy on Saturday night if there’s a raucous group keen to party. But then, you know, it is a pub – just one that serves creamy wodges of Ossau-Iraty sheep’s milk cheese from France ($19).

With nearby Small Town permanently closing this week due to family reasons, The Milton is now home to the best food in the Ulladulla region. (Gwylo at Mollymook is a close second, then it’s a long drop to Cupitt’s Estate and Rick Stein’s overripe Bannisters.) Smartly designed new rooms upstairs start at $109 if you want to make a weekend out of local sashimi and even more local lager. I say book three nights and stick around for the chicken.