Bucket-list dining experiences grace menus across Australia
Fabulous feasts in Australia you are guaranteed never to forget.
Eating well in Australia is easy. Talented chefs, innovative cuisine, fabulous fresh produce and great wines combine to create some of the best fine dining in the world. But sometimes the most memorable meals aren’t necessarily the most expensive. Each and every one of these fabulous feasts is guaranteed to be a meal to remember.
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ANIMAL TRACKS SAFARI, KAKADU NATIONAL PARK, NT
Spend a day hunting and gathering on an indigenous-owned buffalo farm in the middle of Kakadu at the Kakadu Buffalo Farm Reserve, set up to help provide free bush meats such as buffalo, magpie geese and wild pig to the traditional land owners, the Bininj and Mungguy. This full-day adventure will take you to parts of the national park off limits to other travellers. Most trips are led by Patsy Raichiwanga Raglar, who grew up in Arnhem Land and knows just about everything there is to know about living off the land in the bush. Although there is some transport in a four-wheel-drive safari vehicle, most of the day is spent on foot, walking with Patsy across her land, digging for yams and roots and water chestnuts, learning about bush medicine and law, and following animal tracks.
It’s a hands-on experience, and everyone helps prepare dinner, so be prepared to help pluck freshly shot magpie geese and strip paperbark from trees. The geese, along with just-caught barramundi, buffalo and whatever other meats and vegetables you find during the day — turtles, snakes, grubs, fruits, yams, various native tubers — are then cooked in paperbark parcels in a campfire ground oven, served picnic-style beside a billabong as the sun sets and the skies fill with thousands of birds. Tours depart from Cooinda in Kakadu from May to September. The best time to see the birdlife massing over the billabong is from mid-July through to September. If you prefer your bush tucker a little more rarefied, the annual Taste of Kakadu, held in mid-May, is a 10-day foodie festival that includes canape cruises on billabongs, special pop-up dinners cooked by celebrity chefs using native ingredients, cooking masterclasses and ground-oven feasts.
■ parksaustralia.gov.au/kakadu/taste
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BYO TO THE BOATHOUSE, KING ISLAND, TASMANIA
King Island’s best restaurant has no food. No chef or waiters either, or anyone to wash the dishes. But don’t let these trifling matters dissuade you from going, because The Boathouse is the best spot on the island for a long lunch or candlelit dinner for two. It’s strictly BYO at The Boathouse, tucked under the shadow of the lighthouse on the southern side of Currie Harbour — BYO drinks and food. Not that sourcing your own food on King Island is a problem. This windswept island in the western waters of Bass Strait is famous for its gourmet produce. Its melt-in-your-mouth beef and sinfully rich cream and cheeses are perennial favourites on restaurant menus across the country, as are its crayfish, scallops and oysters when they are in season.
With ingredients this good, you don’t need to be a Michelin-starred chef to whip up a good meal. All you need to do is crack a few shells, heat up the barbecue, unwrap the cheese and pop a cork.
The Boathouse is the perfect place to do it. You’ll find a barbecue, outdoor tables and chairs, and several tables inside the colourful art-filled room with floor-to-ceiling harbour views. Anyone is free to use the space and cooking facilities, so long as they clean up after themselves and drop a few dollars in the donation box.
The original boathouse was built in 1871 to store the lighthouse keeper’s boat. Over the years it’s seen various reincarnations as a schoolhouse and a storage space for munitions during World War II. It was derelict for a quarter of a century before local artist Caroline Kininmonth gave it a makeover, filled it with her vibrant art and transformed it into a community eating and meeting place in the early 1990s. At the time it was the only waterfront restaurant on the island and it soon became a hit with locals and visitors alike, operating on a user-pays honesty system for 18 years until disaster struck in February 2009, when it was burnt to the ground.
“It wasn’t until it was gone that we realised how much we used it,” Caroline says. “The locals really missed it. So we rebuilt it. We did it with no money, and lots of people helped.” Before you go to The Boathouse, visit King Island Dairy, taste the range of cheeses, throw your diet to the wind and stock up on supplies. You can order crayfish a day ahead from the Foodworks supermarket in Currie (mid-November to mid-January) and hampers of local produce are also available. The butcher in Currie sells local beef.
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DINE OUT ON PEARL MEAT, DAMPIER PENINSULA, WA
Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula about 215km north of Broome, is home to the world’s largest South Sea pearls. The pearl farm, one of Australia’s oldest, has been run by the same family since 1946 and is a popular stop on some of the longer tours to the famous horizontal waterfall in Talbot Bay. There are regular tours of the farm and a hard-to-resist range of gorgeous pearl jewellery, but the real reason to come here is the restaurant. Pearl meat — the adductor muscle of the oyster — is considered a delicacy; said to have aphrodisiac qualities, it sells for more than $400 a kilo in Asia.
You won’t have to pay those prices here. The tasting plate has pearl meat done half-a-dozen different ways or you can try some in a seafood pasta dish. In case you’re wondering, pearl meat tastes a bit like abalone or scallop. There are also bistro classics such as local barramundi, burgers, chicken and squid and very good cheesecake. The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner (April-November) and accommodation is available, ranging from old pearling shacks to glamping safari tents with ensuites and a small bush campground.
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FERAL MIXED GRILL, PARACHILNA, SA
Watching a blood-red sun sink into the dusty plain while perched on a stool outside an outback pub, cold beer — or a glass of bubbles from the winery just a couple of hours down the road — in hand is an unforgettable way to end a day. Even better when the pub is the iconic Prairie Hotel in Parachilna in the middle of the Flinders Ranges, as famous for its innovative approach to using local ingredients as its stylish accommodation.
While you may be tempted to dismiss as a gimmick the hotel’s signature dish, the “feral mixed grill’’ of kangaroo fillet, emu fillet mignon and camel sausage (technically only the camel is feral, the others are just wild), the Prairie’s food is definitely worth going out of your way for. It might sound like a novelty designed to fleece tourists but this is a quality act, delicately done with flair, and one of the outback’s best dining experiences.
The dishes are a blend of different tastes and textures combining the native foods with more contemporary ingredients. The Feral Antipasto includes kangaroo mettwurst, emu pate, goat’s cheese and bush tomato chilli jam. Goats are a prominent feature on the menu: goat’s curd on bruschetta, goat curries and pies, goat’s curd cheesecake and goat’s milk cheese.
You’ll also find fresh seafood on the menu, including yabbies, and a generous use of other native produce such as wattle and acacia seeds (in breads and pastries, both sweet and savoury), samphire (a salty-tasting succulent herb), native watercress, pepperleaf, lemon myrtle, native limes and bush tomatoes. Quandongs (sweet native tree fruits) are harvested locally and are often served in a crumble pie with quandong sauce — definitely worth ordering. The house-made desert lime gelato is pretty good on a hot day too.
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PICNIC ON YOUR OWN PRIVATE ISLAND, GREAT BARRIER REEF, QLD
Everyone loves a little romance now and again, and there is nothing more romantic than a gourmet beach picnic in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Comb the sands for seashells, slip on some flippers and snorkel over coral gardens or just sit back with a glass of chilled wine and soak up the view. Many of the island resorts will drop you off with gourmet picnic hampers at beaches where seclusion is guaranteed. Lizard Island Resort, north of Cairns, offers the choice of 24 secret beaches for a private picnic with a gourmet hamper. It also offers seven-course degustation dining experiences on the beach in a private pavilion with sunset views.
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SOUNDS OF SILENCE, ULURU, NT
The Sounds of Silence dinner in the desert near Ayers Rock Resort is not your average bush barbecue. The evening begins with a bus ride out to a sand dune on the edge of the park for a didgeridoo performance accompanied by sparkling wine and canapes such as smoked kangaroo with native pepperberry, crocodile and saltbush flans, and rosella and feta tarts as you watch the sun set. Tables are dressed with crisp white tablecloths and fine silver. Dinner is a buffet of fresh barramundi, lamb, kangaroo and emu steaks and a selection of desserts. Once everyone has eaten, the lanterns are dimmed, the port poured and the legends of the southern sky are explained by an astronomer.
For a more intimate experience, Tali Wiru caters for just 20 guests, serving canapes, champagne and a four-course table d’hote dinner, each course matched with premium Australian wines. It’s a sophisticated bush-tucker degustation; the menu changes, but expect dishes such as pressed wallaby with fermented quandong as an entree, while main course could be pan-roasted toothfish with coastal greens, followed by a chocolate dessert topped with Davidson plum, lemon myrtle and quandong or a pavlova featuring camel-milk gelato with green-ant meringue (which tastes much better than it sounds). Listening to indigenous stories while sipping port and cognac around a fire is a highlight. If you really want to ramp up the wow factor, you can upgrade and arrive in style by helicopter — this option includes a half-hour helicopter tour taking in Uluru and Kata Tjuta before the dining experience begins.
Nights are cold in the desert, so dress warmly. Wheelchair access is available for the Sounds of Silence dinner although access to the top of the dune for sunset canapes is difficult; the Tali Wiru dinner is also held on the top of a dune, but you can get a lift to the top in a golf cart if you arrange it when booking. Both dinner experiences are expensive, but they are absolutely worth the splurge.
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HIGH TEA AT THE HOTEL WINDSOR, MELBOURNE
Melbourne might be famous for its coffee but nowhere does afternoon tea with a sense of occasion quite like the Hotel Windsor. Legend has it the tradition of taking afternoon tea with a selection of snacks was introduced to fashionable English society by the Duchess of Bedford around 1840; she often felt peckish in the late afternoon. The idea took off and it wasn’t long before afternoon tea — traditionally served between 4pm and 5pm — became a formal social event for which ladies would dress in long gowns, gloves and hats.
By 1883, when the Hotel Windsor began serving afternoon tea, the ritual had become a favourite of Queen Victoria. Tea — always from India or Ceylon — was poured from silver teapots into fine bone china cups and the milk always went in first, to protect the porcelain from cracking. Rules of etiquette were followed: never clink your spoon against the side of the cup, don’t look over the rim of your cup at your companion while drinking and keep your pinky finger tucked in.
Traditional afternoon tea always includes a selection of dainty sandwiches, scones served with clotted cream and preserves (cream before jam if it’s a Devonshire tea, although tradition dictates it’s the other way round if you’re from Cornwall or anywhere else) as well as cakes and savoury pastries.
Afternoon tea in the elegant One Eleven lounge at the Hotel Windsor is very much a traditional affair. Ribbon sandwiches (including cucumber and ricotta cheese with herbs), savoury pastries such as bite-sized parmesan cauliflower tarts and miniature prosciutto muffins, a selection of French pastries including chocolate pralines, lemon meringue tarts, pistachio puffs and fresh sultana scones with strawberry jam and double cream are served on three-tiered silver stands.
There are 11 teas, including the house Windsor blend, to choose from, all served in silver teapots and fine china cups. Sparkling wine and French champagne are also offered; on weekends, there’s a dessert buffet.
This is an edited extract from The Definitive Bucket List by Lee Atkinson published by Hardie Grant Books; $45; hardiegrant.com/au/travel.