Australia’s unmissable foodie experiences for 2023
You could shuck Tasmanian oysters while dressed in waist-high waders, or sweat through a spicy laksa in the Top End. These uniquely Aussie encounters are just the beginning | FULL LIST
Where can the most delicious, immersive and fun dining and imbibing dining opportunities Australia has to offer be found? All over, of course. The top experiences are not exclusive to the cosmopolitan cities, rather spanning across the country with regional hubs, coastal hot-spots and inner-city spaces emerging with some of the best offerings. Think cellar doors, fly fishing, gin tastings and more.
So, if slurping down briny mouthfuls of Tassie oysters while standing knee-deep in Great Oyster Bay, dining at the immaculate restaurants at Pt. Leo Estate in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula or sampling AP Bakery’s pastries on the rooftop of the gorgeous Paramount Pictures building in Surry Hills, Sydney, is more your vibe, be sure to check out our Gourmet Journeys 2023 guide.
The gourmet edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine is published this Saturday.
Victoria
Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre, Lake Condah
The Gunditjmara people trapped and farmed kooyang (eels) for centuries at Tae Rak – otherwise known as Lake Condah – in the heritage-listed Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, about 320km west of Melbourne. The unique system of aquaculture has been much studied and admired, and the addition of an architecturally captivating aquaculture centre places the significance of this ancient practice under the spotlight once again. A cultural tour of the lakeside landscape illuminates the history of this magical site, and you’ll want to sit yourself down at the onsite Bush Tucker Café to tuck into some smoked kooyang, perhaps stuffed into an arancini ball or presented on a tasting plate.
Pt. Leo Estate, Mornington Peninsula
When a kitchen fire destroyed part of this remarkable Mornington Peninsula estate in 2022, owner John Gandel used the pause as an opportunity to rebuild parts of the property, more beautifully and more ambitiously than ever. The immaculate reopened estate is a thing of beauty encompassing 50ha of vineyards, two restaurants, a wine terrace and even a garden sculpture gallery. Laura is the estate’s most elevated dining space, with the menu utilising Victorian produce across dishes such as Aquna Murray cod with peas and lobster flambé. Dine on the signature menu ($165) or the seasonal menu ($275), then take a walk in the sculpture gallery before picking up a few bottles from the cellar door. If you’re making a weekend of it, the estate has packages with the nearby Lon Retreat & Spa, which has seven luxe suites and offers transfers to lunch. Magical.
Mount Monument Wines restaurant, Romsey
You’ll sense a palpable reverence when dining at Mount Monument Wines’ hotly anticipated new restaurant. Perhaps it’s down to artist Richard Stringer’s imposing Birth of Zarathustra sculpture presiding over the dining room, or the fact that the building was designed by MONA architect Nonda Katsalidis, or simply because chef Ben Salt’s food is expertly finessed with seasonal, local ingredients (think dishes such as gin-cured kingfish with citrus, pickled fennel and citrus oil). Whatever the reason, this cool-climate Macedon Ranges winery has levelled up to icon status by triangulating a visit with food, art and wine.
Du Fermier at NGV Garden Restaurant, Melbourne
Beloved chef Annie Smithers – creator of du Fermier, an acclaimed French farmhouse-style kitchen at Trentham, southeast of Daylesford – is bringing her brand of elevated regional fare to the Big Smoke this winter for a collaboration with the Garden Restaurant at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Smithers (pictured) brings du Fermier’s distinctive ethos to town for a feast inspired by, and coinciding with, the gallery’s blockbuster Winter Masterpieces exhibition featuring more than 100 works by the French painter Pierre Bonnard. The menu features French classics including a potato and gruyère terrine, beef bourguignon, confit duck and a sexy Calvados crème caramel. Come for the art and stay for the food, it’s a winter match made in heaven.
Tony Tan’s Cooking School, Melbourne
From the age of 10, Tony Tan (pictured) was indoctrinated into the culinary arts, helping out in his father’s fine-dining restaurant in Kuantan, Malaysia. Emigrating to Australia at 17, Tan’s early foundations in food set his trajectory to become one of the country’s most respected chefs and teachers, thanks to his contemporary riffs on classic Asian fare. He now dispenses culinary tuition at his cooking school in bucolic Trentham, 70 minutes from Melbourne. The five-hour, small-group class runs every Saturday ($275-$330 per person, depending on ingredients used) and covers the making of eight dishes, which may include Singapore black pepper crab, truffle dumplings and char siu pork.
Four Pillars Distillery, Healesville
They’re doing well at Four Pillars, you might say, after visiting this astonishing distillery and gin playground at Healesville in Victoria’s Yarra Valley. The property reopened last year after a $7 million renovation and it’s not hard to see where the dosh has been spent; the glistening copper bar is just the start of it. Go for G&T tastings in the gin garden, or opt for a distilling masterclass; there’s also a snacky menu offering the likes of gin-cured smoked salmon bagels or a cheese platter. Of course, leave with a boatload of Four Pillars for later.
Portarlington Mussel Tours
The “mussel master” of Portarlington, Lance Wiffen, has spent the past 30 years earning his title. He has sustainably raised the bivalve molluscs in the cool waters of Port Phillip Bay (where, incidentally, 60 per cent of Australia’s mussels are harvested) with such husbandry that celebrated chefs including Attica’s Ben Shewry and Noma’s Rene Redzepi have praised their clean, oceanic flavour. For $230 a head, Wiffen will take you onto the water aboard Valerie, his 40-year-old Huon pine vessel, and regale you with mussel intel and cooking tips as you slurp his salty harvest accompanied by local Bellarine drops and produce platters. The ferry from Melbourne’s Docklands takes a little over an hour to arrive in Portarlington, making it a doable day excursion from the city.
New South Wales
Brokenwood Wines and Mount Pleasant cellar doors, Hunter Valley
As the oldest wine-growing region in Australia, the Hunter Valley has undeniable pedigree as an oenological and gastronomical destination. With 150 cellar doors, some dating back to the early 1800s, its minibreak credentials are uncontested. In fact, it’s no small undertaking to whittle them into a digestible two-day itinerary. One way to do it is via a curated tour by Ultimate Winery Experiences, where you’ll go deep into the barrel and be guided behind the scenes. If you’re happy noodling about on your own terms, there are two standouts to visit. Pokolbin’s Brokenwood is a beautifully contemporary estate complete with onsite restaurant, bar and cellar door. Visit here before heading to Mount Pleasant. Big money has been invested into this remarkable estate to create a modern cellar door that rivals the distinguished wine estates of France. Be guided through a wine tasting of the label’s drops from four vineyards. Go for a casual 45-minute tasting or settle in for the $150 Maurice O’Shea Flight, which showcases Mount Pleasant’s greatest vintages of the past 20 years.
Fly fishing at Printhie Wines, Nashdale
Most cellar doors offer a sip-and-savour experience, but at Printhie Wines there’s an extra attraction: fly fishing. Located at Nashdale, near Orange in NSW’s Central Tablelands, Printhie produces cool-climate wines (think sparklings and pinot noirs) and has a private fly fishing instructor who’ll help you hook a big one in its lakes. Don’t expect to tuck into your trophy – it’s a catch-and-release exercise – but stay for the five-course degustation curated by chef Jack Brown at his onsite restaurant. Opened last year, the darkly elegant restaurant has attention-seeking, 1000m-above-sea-level views and dishes that range from smoked quail with nahm jim, radish and coconut to ocean trout with broccoli veloute and pine nuts. Opt in for the Printhie wine pairings, of course.
AP Bakery at Paramount House Hotel, Surry Hills, Sydney
When did Australians become obsessed with sugar-hit pastry? A slow but steady trend has taken hold in which croissants, buns and even good old bread are being maximilised (our word) via mountains of icing and sugar. Sceptical? Then head to AP Bakery, which occupies a rooftop location at this coolest of Surry Hills hotels and sample some for yourself. You may well be converted. AP is a cult brand in Sydney, with followers lining up for the baker’s oversized treats. And it’s a bakery worth travelling for, so book into the beautifully realised hotel, which occupies the gorgeous Paramount Pictures building, to complete the immersion. There’s an AP room service menu (to save you lining up at the cafe) but you can also dine downstairs at Poly, the wine bar of Ester chef Mat Lindsay, or at the Paramount Coffee Project, the hotel’s lobby cafe, which is also excellent. It’s a weekend of very good eating in one place.
Western Australia
Mould: A Cheese Festival, Sydney, NSW and Perth, WA
Cheese fiends get it. They are the sort of people who define friendships by the sort of cheese others prefer. Don’t eat blue? Then we can’t know each other. This monster cheese fest, held in Sydney’s Carriageworks over the weekend of June 30-July 1, then in Perth at the Centenary Pavilion (August 25-27, in a collaboration with Pinot Palooza) is always a sellout (Brisbane and Melbourne readers, keep an eye out for 2024 dates). Book ahead for the opportunity of eating your bodyweight in everything from gorgonzola to manchego in an event that is described as a “true cheese experience”. The Perth incarnation of the event, with its focus on that most mercurial of wines, will be a slightly tipsy event to boot. Wine and cheese? Can’t think of a person who doesn’t need that.
Voyager Estate Restaurant, Margaret River
One of the nation’s most scenic wineries, this Margaret River stalwart is in 2023 celebrating the 25th anniversary of the opening of its cellar door to the public. Quite the occasion, but that’s not the only reason to head to this organic, sustainable and biodynamic estate. There’s a new chef in the kitchen in the form of Travis Crane, who has joined from the Northern Territory’s glam Finniss River Lodge. There are tastings and estate tours to be had, but settle into the restaurant for an immersive, wine-led degustation ($150, or $230 with paired Voyager Estate wines) built around locally sourced produce. Dishes might include locally caught octopus with rhubarb and rose; or zucchini, mussels and citrus. The restaurant is set on the estate against the backdrop of lush gardens ringed by organically-farmed vineyards and ancient marri trees. Heaven on (naturally tended) earth.
Shinju Matsuri Sunset Long Table Dinner, Cable Beach
In the 1880s, pearlers descended on Broome; by 1910 the pearl rush was enthusiastically underway, with the town becoming the biggest pearling site in the world, luring a diverse influx of entrepreneurs, including many from Japan and China. Today, the impact of that history is still felt and celebrated with the town’s annual Shinju Matsuri Festival, which runs this year from August 26 to September 10. The gleaming highlight of the line-up has to be the Sunset Long Table Dinner ($295) that unfurls as the sun dips along Cable Beach. Each year the adults-only, multi-course feast is curated by a headline chef who weaves together the town’s extraordinary cultural heritage with its finest regional produce, all set to the sounds of crashing waves and local performers.
High Tea at Como the Treasury, Perth
This luxury hotel is already incredible – a glamorously restored heritage building in Perth’s CBD, finished with superb attention to detail. But it’s the seamless folding of native ingredients into its culinary program that is genuinely impressive. Across its restaurants and bars, including the exceptional Wildflower fine diner, Indigenous ingredients are accented in a way that is natural, never forced. Lately, a new addition to the dining program has arrived in the form of the Como High Tea ($78 Wednesday-Friday; $85 Saturday-Sunday). Held in the hotel’s charming Cape Arid Rooms, this celebration of afternoon indulging involves morsels such as Wagin duck rillettes and parfait with pickled beetroot, and chocolate choux pastry with cocoa craquelin and vanilla custard. Pair these with green tea with organic lemon myrtle, lavender and eucalyptus for a charming afternoon out.
Little Creatures at The Camfield, Perth
Australia’s largest pub has been transformed by the March arrival of a Little Creatures microbrewery. More than 20 years since the famed brewery launched into the stratosphere in its original Fremantle location, this second location – outside the gleaming Optus stadium in Perth – heralds the arrival of new brews, including the limited-release Backyard Ale, an all-Australian IPA, and a new permanent Draught Ale.
Tasmania
Oyster Bay Tours, Freycinet
Oysters plucked and shucked in the limb-chilling waters of Tassie’s Freycinet Peninsula defy comparison. There’s something thrilling about slurping one from the shell while standing knee-deep in the frigid waters of Great Oyster Bay. At the family-run Freycinet Marine Farm, wriggle into a pair of waders and wander around where these briny mouthfuls are growing to plump perfection. On a two-hour Oyster Bay Tour ($145), learn how the oysters are farmed – and the key skill of shucking them without burying a blade in your hand. Mussels are grown here, too; you’ll also get to devour them cooked and served with a glass of local riesling.
Northern Territory
Darwin International Laksa Festival, Darwin
Territorians are obsessed with laksa. My Territorian friend, born and raised in Darwin, returns home at least once a year purely for the purpose of heading to Parap Village Markets on a Saturday morning for a soul-restoring dose of this Malaysian noodle soup. She always heads to her favourite, the famous Mary’s Laksa (and takes some bottled chilli to get her through the cold southern winters) but across Darwin each October there are dozens of venues all serving their (slightly different) versions of this deliciously fragrant dish. This annual festival, held this year in October, is a celebration of the cross-cultural phenomenon that is Darwin. Prepare to work up a sweat in the steamy 30C-plus spring weather as you slurp down mouth-tinkling bowls of goodness rich with spice, lime, coconut, prawns, galangal and, of course, chilli.
Kakadu Dird (Moon) Feast
A proud Bininj man from central Kakadu, Ben Tyler began his bush food company, Kakadu Kitchen, to share his mob’s culture and create an ethical business that his family could run from their remote community. The native ingredients for his wares, including the stunning, alcohol-free native peach bellini, are plucked from his bush “kitchen”, which he describes as having been “65,000 years in the making”. Putting heads together with executive chef Phil Foote and Kakadu Tourism, Tyler has curated the four-course Dird (Moon) Feast ($189) served at Cooinda Lodge, which runs in parallel with the rising moon and the six seasons of Kakadu. The beautifully prepared, family-foraged feast is paired with stories, traditional music and non-alcoholic cocktails.
South Australia
Fine Flavours Tour, Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island is an abundant cornucopia, a land of milk and Ligurian honey, cheese, the palate-punching brine of oysters, as well as botanically imbued spirits. Try it all without having to work too hard on your discoveries on Exceptional Kangaroo Island’s Fine Flavours Tour ($548). Guests spend a whole day sampling the wares of this spectacular island’s devoted producers; in short, you won’t return to the mainland hungry.
Nepenthe Wines Cellar Door, Balhannah, Adelaide Hills
Established in 1994, Nepenthe is a jewel in Adelaide Hills’ crown. One of the region’s benchmark wineries, it has received a multi-million dollar refurbishment this year. The beautiful cellar door has a huge deck and a barrel room that opens directly onto the glistening lawns and vines. On warm days, sit on the deck or the lawn for al fresco tastings of cool-climate drops by winemaker James Evers (pictured); when it’s cold, stay inside for a flight of wines or tastings while you gaze through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the vineyards and rolling hills.
The Summertown Aristologist, Adelaide Hills
Having turned its next-door space into a sweet little wine bar, dropping into The Summertown Aristologist is now easier than ever. The minute bar (it seats just 24) keeps things more casual than the restaurant and offers natural wines and a snackable menu that calls attention to local producers such as Section 28 cheese. And if you fancy what you’re sipping, you can take bottles home with you. If you’re in the Hills and in need of some serious comfort dining, though, don’t forget the impeccable original diner with its focus on hand-crafted dishes; think earthy fare such as duck with lentils, or granny smith apple rice pud. It’s a wonderful regional dining experience.
Queensland
First Artists Cultural Experience, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art Queensland, Brisbane
A little like a cultural version of Night at the Museum, this unique experience involves guests taking a private, after-hours excursion through Brisbane’s Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. Behind closed doors, guests spend four hours experiencing immersive engagement with the collection’s impressive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. A First Nations storyteller, artist and curator chaperones each group (maximum 25) through the deserted hallways, then joins them for a dining experience created by Aboriginal chef Chris Jordan and QAGOMA’s executive chef Aaron Holt. There’s live music, dance performances and more. The experience comes at a price, though – $4199 per head (and yes, you read that right).
Dining with the Tides, Orpheus Island, Whitsundays
If you’ve managed to find yourself marooned at the ultra-luxe Orpheus Island Lodge in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, well done – this place is one of the Whitsundays’ undiscovered gems. At its signature dining experience, Dining With the Tides ($200 per head), head chef Paul Wilson’s dishes meld tropical ingredients with world flavours – think spanner crab katsu and watermelon, or lobster raviolo tomato and bisque. You’ll likely see eagle rays, reef sharks and spangled emperors playing in the Coral Sea beyond as you dine. Magic.