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Entering Earth Walker & Co, a cafe-restaurant in the south coast village of Coledale, is like an alternate universe forged by coastal vegetation, Gothic-Tudor aesthetics, medieval feasting and a passion for seasonal cooking.

Stacks of yellow zucchini, sweet potatoes, baby tomatoes on the vine, whole pumpkins and cabbages spill from platters and shelves. A waist-height open fireplace, set behind a tile-topped ordering counter and a long wooden bench, glows with contained ferocity.

Chef Ciara Kulmar, who co-founded Earth Walker & Co with Talina Wilson in 2016, gently rummages in the flames.

Wearing fireproof gloves and a leather apron, she picks burning logs, sending sparks up past metal hooks and cages holding whole pineapples, a slab of lamb, bushy green-topped carrots, whole fennel, a pumpkin and cabbages.

Homely and warming food. I think the fire definitely lends itself to that but also to all cooking.

Chef Ciara Kulmar

Wilson, at the counter taking orders, is framed by vases of edible red amaranth flowers, baskets of orange and purple carrots and piles of sourdough loaves.

On a wild, wet Friday night, 80 minutes south of Sydney, this two-room venue (a cafe by day) has become its alter ego – a once-a-week dinner night.

Candle light flickers across linen curtains, dark wooden tables, old paintings, convex mirrors and Tudor-style turned-leg side tables.

Packed with diners, it’s a space that makes you want to wear Brontesque layered skirts and a passionate, windswept expression, particularly when Kulmar and Wilson’s lush and dramatic dishes arrive.

First, an entree of charred beets with labneh, cumquat, lemon and ginger jam, orange blossom and candied nuts. Then Dutch heirloom carrots, carrot hummus, pomegranate, date molasses, dukkah and finger lime.

Both are bountiful gardens of beautifully seared vegetables. The second is particularly good with its creamy hummus lagoon, scattered seeds and bursts of native citrus.

Mains, which include four meat dishes (rare scotch beef layered with pecorino cheese, brick-pressed chicken with smoked Tuscan kale and garlic confit, a cheeseburger and hung lamb shoulder) and two vegetarian, are equally verdant.

When staff approach with the slow-roasted saltbush lamb shoulder – served with Tasmanian pepperberry, charred eggplant, pickles and a crown of red amaranth flowers and glossy red cabbage, along with a plate of smoked cauliflower florets, coal-roasted pumpkin wedges and tahini dressing – we could be Henry VIII eyeing his 16th century coronation banquet.

The lamb is tender and plump, the eggplant a smokey creamy marvel and the pumpkin and cauliflower lovely with Middle Eastern spices amid ruby pomegranate seeds, pistachios and rose petals.

This is a feast to take your time with, such is the girth of each platter.

Dessert, a choice between rose wine-smoked pineapple with Darkes Frost peaches and figs, or cider-brushed peaches with cinnamon-spiced cultured butter crumble, is also sumptuous stuff.

Best advice: share one entree, main and sweet and still be satiated by size, adventurous ingredient pairings and the passion from the kitchen. Kulmar, whose mother led the kitchen at the nearby Scarborough Hotel for many years, says the menu is tailored by seasonal produce, some from local producers or markets, or the eight acres she shares with her parents, husband and children in Stanwell Park.

“We have a range of suppliers but our customers always know there could be something quirky on their plate,” Kulmar says. “Dad produced cucamelons the last two weeks and customers keep asking what they are.”

Inspiration comes from Asian, Middle Eastern, European and Australian styles of cooking.

“Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of grandma’s kitchen-style cooking,” Kulmar says. “Homely and warming food. I think the fire definitely lends itself to that but also to all cooking.”

They’re also passionate about the renovation of the building, a former news agency, and interior designed with Eliza Woodward. The bar’s elaborate back wall of engraved panels, bevelled mirrors and carved cornicing was built by Wilson from 13 found wardrobes.

They also de-nailed and saved the 80-year-old floorboards, draped the ceiling with metres and metres of monkey vine from her garden and installed a wall of post boxes salvaged from Austinmer Post Office.

“We’re thinking of having dinner nights where everyone’s phones get locked away,” Wilson says. “Then they can talk to each other, really taste and enjoy the food and feel a world away.”