Your guide to Australia’s best guilt-free foodie holiday

Chef Matt Adams creates the menu each day at his restaurant, Timbre Kitchen, after he stocktakes the produce he gets from backyard farmers who drop off what they can’t sell.

“We never say no,” he says. “We don’t like wastage; we take what they have, give them vouchers to eat here, and I try to come up with something worth eating. Call it reverse menu writing.”

Executive chef Thomas Pirker creates dishes from local producers at Launceston restaurant, Grain of the Silos.Credit: Peppers Silo

He’s modest, of course. Timbre Kitchen – 10 minutes drive north of Launceston – is regarded as one of Tasmania’s finest restaurants.

Executive chef Thomas Pirker says he’s only interested in using farmers doing the right thing when sourcing ingredients for his award-winning Launceston eatery, Grain of the Silos.

“Though that’s pretty easy down here,” he says. “I’ve never worked in a region with so many innovative farmers and producers; everyone thinks outside the box. And as a chef, you have to be creative, you don’t want to be wasting anything in Launceston. It’s not the thing to do in this town.”

Timbre Kitchen chef Matt Adams uses leftover produce dropped to him by local farmers to create his menu.Credit: Timbre Kitchen

Tasmania is already the only carbon-zero state in Australia, but Launceston and surrounds are taking that up a notch: they offer the best carbon-zero foodie holidays in the whole country. You could consider yourself an environmentally minded traveller just coming here to eat. Technically, the more I eat, the better I serve the planet… right?

I’m here on a Saturday morning, and most of the city is at the Harvest Market in the heart of downtown; Launceston locals don’t buy their fruit and veggies at Coles. Harvest president Andrew Pitt is walking me past line-ups of locals waiting for fruit and veggies, truffles, oysters, cheese, wine, and other local delicacies.

“It’s freezing today, and we’ll still get 2500 people through here,” he says. “Launceston is all about food and food sustainability. Hobart has Mona [museum]; we needed something to hang our hat on.”

So Pitt helped lead a bid to have Launceston named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, one of only 36 in the world. “We wanted to formalise what we locals already knew,” he says.

The region’s full of eclectic food folk – meeting them is part of the attraction of being here, and you don’t have to travel far to do it. The Tamar Valley – Tasmania’s largest wine region and home to 60 food operators – starts the minute the city ends.

Hyper local … wintry delights from Timbre Kitchen.

I stop in at Timbre Kitchen for lunch prepared by Adams, who tells me the pork I’m raving to him about is from up the road at Fork It Farm. I find a long table there serving food produced on the property, looking out across hectares of pastures and wilderness. Owner Daniel Croker gave up a career in science in Brisbane for a simpler life.

Nothing is wasted at award-winning Grain of the Silos.Credit: Agricultured

“Our vet calls our pigs ‘happy pigs’,” he says. “People say we should put more pigs on, but we’re now not just carbon zero, we’re carbon positive. We just want to be a small regenerative farm that hides nothing.”

Around the corner, Summerlea Farm is producing what chef Thomas Pirker says is the “best grass-raised beef you’ll ever taste, anywhere”.

Co-owner Liz Mahnken runs private tours of the farm, where she’s created a wildlife corridor for platypus, wombats, wallabies and the largest freshwater crayfish on Earth – that only live in this part of Tasmania and are among the most endangered animals on the planet.

Rick and Liz Mahnken produce some of Tasmania’s best beef as well as maintaining a wildlife corridor for rare animals.Credit: Summerlea Farm

Across the Tamar River, I call in at Marion’s Vineyard to meet a winemaker who grew up in a tee-pee on the property, and who still only picks her grapes on a full moon.

There are mavericks in almost every paddock in this leafy part of Tasmania. Though the best way to meet them all together is at Australia’s most progressive food festival, Agricultured.

Held over four days in Launceston (from July 31 in 2024), it features Tasmania’s most innovative food identities seeking to demystify the whole concept of paddock-to-plate dining.

“The answer to supermarkets making all the money is small-scale farming, but on a massive scale,” event general manager Sarah Blacklock tells me.

“Paddock-to-plate isn’t just a buzz term, it’s real. And nowhere does it better than Launceston.”

The details

Fly

Qantas and Virgin Australia fly daily to Launceston, hire a Tesla (for more carbon points) at Launceston Airport. See drivecarhire.com.au/tesla

Stay

Sleep in a room overlooking the river at Peppers Silo Launceston, with one of Tasmania’s best restaurants, Grain of the Silos, on the ground floor from $274 a night. See pepperssilo.com.au

Eat

Check out Timbre Kitchen’s evolving menu (timbrekitchen.com), book a private tour at Summerlea Farm from $75 per person (summerleafarmtasmania.com), stop for lunch or a charcuterie board at Fork It Farm (forkitfarm.com.au).

Festival

Agricultured runs from July 31 to August 4, 2024, and features seminars, workshops, cooking classes and long table dinners with Tasmania’s most innovative food minds. See agricultured.com.au

The writer travelled courtesy of Agricultured and Peppers Silo Launceston.