I interrupted my cosseted hibernation in a new guest suite only to dine downstairs in the landmark restaurant, now in its 20th year in a former c1832 riverside flour mill.

I felt safe there, too. Gloriously safe. Safe in a way that I remember recognising only once before in a Tasmanian restaurant.

That was two years ago at New Norfolk’s Agrarian Kitchen Eatery, where the ease with which the waitress described a multi-course degustation lunch menu filled me with confidence.

“You guys have got this,” I thought, savouring the chance to enjoy the meal without also having to dine on the contagious angst of service staff who quiver when asked about the spatchcocking specifics of the quail.

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I had the same comforting, liberating experience, magnified, over my three-course dinner ($85pp) at Stillwater Restaurant. No nervous waitstaff scurried back to the kitchen to beg the chef for more info about the preparation of the Scottsdale pork belly, which was served with roasted sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke) and greens. No wine waiter blushed over any terroir trip-up.

This team knows its stuff. Back to front. Inside out. It’s like a little ecosystem of excellence and the nurturing of younger service staff is palpable.

Then there is the food. Let’s just say I finally understand quail. There’s plenty of meat on these little bones from Rannoch Farm and it is tenderness itself with its shoyu glaze, which, comfortingly, evokes for me a refined version of a favourite chicken wing marinade I’ve been making for 20 years from Stephanie Alexander’s A Cook’s Companion.

Executive chef Craig Will’s mature and accomplished fare is not unadventurous by any means, but you just know he’s not going to stuff up. If this is safe dining, then it’s safe in the way that reliably reaches its height not with strangers but trusted lovers.

At the risk of sounding over-effusive, my dessert was not amazing. It was delicious in a weekend breakfast-bowl way – poached pear, macadamia streusel and caramelised white chocolate ice-cream, but the pear was cold, and this felt out of place on a winter evening menu.

Back upstairs, then, to the boudoir. Dark, quiet, moody, beautiful. A pause – a moment of reckoning – when I notice again the copy of Rohan Wilson’s The Roving Party on my bedside table, a book implicating colonial-era Launceston businessman, who went on to found Melbourne, as a serial murderer of Aborigines. Yes, the same John Batman after whom the Batman Bridge crossing the Tamar River and the Batman Highway to which it connects on the eastern side, is named, but hopefully not for much longer.

Room two of the seven guesthouse rooms has three windows overlooking the Tamar. It is still and serene on the night. I cast my eye over the boats and the silhouette of the Peppers Silos hotel across the river to the northeast, then draw back in to the remarkable space in which I find myself.

It’s time for another evening round of Kris Kristofferson’s greatest hits, which were playing on our arrival – by prior arrangement. Guesthouse manager Chris McNally might have been a spy in a previous life, such is his predilection for the kind of detail others may not notice and log. He gleans his first round of intel via a pre-arrival Q&A, when guests nominate an arrival album or genre and a welcoming tipple.

In the morning, he tells me the next guests in our room have nominated “cool jazz”. I say that’s a bit generic. He says he remembers the wine these return customers most liked last time and will ensure it’s on hand in their room before their arrive. He says some overnight guests have returned not just seven, but eight and nine times since the accommodation opened a year ago. It’s a safe bet, after all.

The author was a guest of Stillwater

Discover northern delights

IT is a tale of two cities, I discovered as I roamed the Launceston CBD last Friday.

Seeking lollies for a Christmas in July party, I headed to Gourlay’s Sweet Shop at 12 Quadrant Mall, a public space redeveloped four years ago as part of the Launceston City Heart revitalisation project.

The initiative was meant to perk up commerce and community engagement in the precinct, but I saw an alarming lack of foot traffic and many shop front windows bearing For Lease signs.

I felt for stoic remaining tenants, including restaurant Pachinko (23 Quadrant Mall, open Wed-Sat from 5.30pm), an intimate and well-regarded 24-seater serving modern Asian cuisine.

It was a different story on Charles St, where the block opposite Prince’s Square park is becoming quite the gourmet strip. Hope abounds at brand-new wine bar Havilah, where winemaker owner Ricky Evans and partner Chanel Parratt are staking a minimalist claim on connoisseurs with a sophisticated wine list that pays tribute to terroir.

Geronimo Aperitivo Bar & Restaurant (186 Charles St) is a few doors along and one of the handful of restaurants that sit in Lonnie’s top tier with Stillwater, a list that also includes Black Cow Bistro (70 George St) and MudBar Restaurant (28 Seaport Boulevard). Geronimo’s Euro-centric menu is designed around share plates showcasing Tassie produce. Open for lunch and dinner bookings, Tuesday to Saturday, with takeaway meals and drinks also available.

Prince’s Square Bar (164 Charles St) on the same block is a cute espresso and pastries bar that opened two years ago. It’s also a go-to for your Lonnie equivalent of a Hobart Pigeon Whole Bakers devotee, offering loaves of naturally leavened Sweetwheat sourdough.

Nearby Tinka Coffee Brewers’ (147 St John St) offering is also a caffeine and bread zone. Melbourne imports David Straw and Samantha Burton opened in January, tinkering with their formula before landing on their go-to: quick gourmet sourdough toasties and locally roasted coffee.

“Do one thing and do it well,” David said. “It’s perfect for a quick lunch on the go.”

Follow with a beer chaser a few doors down at Saint John Craft Beer Bar (133 St John St), where kegs are continually switched over to keep punters’ palates attuned to differences between brews.

This is the Launceston answer to Salamanca’s Preachers or Jack Greene’s, but grungier, then tempered by a dash of ubiquitous craft-brewer hipsterdom.

“This place is for everyone,” the afternoon barman in a beanie said, but when I looked around everyone else was a bloke. The most popular beer is Stone + Wood.

Perhaps the most unusual offering on tap last Friday was a Wayward Brewing Co Raspberry Berliner Weisse — a sip of summer on a cold winter’s day.

I also discovered a divine homewares and lifestyle store on the same stroll. Ecoco (51 Balfour St) opened in Launceston 10 years ago, and has built up a distinctive aesthetic of textured refinement. The shop is well worth a peek, or visit online at ecoco.com.au/collections.

The smaller Hope & Me (18 Quadrant Mall), back where we began, is a lovely shop, too, in which fabrics are natural and hues are earthy.

And quality accommodation is growing, from Peppers Silo (89-91 Lindsay St, Invermay, includes Grain of the Silo restaurant) and boutique apartments Change Overnight apartment hotel (25 York St) to the superlative Stillwater Seven (2 Bridge Rd).

Wherever I walked, I found myself looking up as well, drinking in the CBD’s beautiful and largely intact heritage architecture.

Parks and streetscapes are likewise well-maintained and charming.

Launceston is also home to Design Tasmania, a museum of contemporary timber design with a craft gift shop, but on my visit it was yet to reopen after the lockdown.

There is also the city’s Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (on two sites).

For galloping gourmets, the Saturday Harvest Market (71 Cimitiere St) is back in business, 8.30am-noon .

I left the jewel of the North, returning to Hobart via an unusually green and well-watered midlands, thinking Launceston offered boundless potential for a further revitalised future. It has the backdrop, with built heritage and paddock-to-plate proximity.

Good new local-sourcing cafes usually bode well, but they are just the beginning.

The City of Launceston, which sits inside a marginal federal seat, was a lucky and controversial recipient of a recent $10 million Better Regional Fund grant to build “a creative precinct”. Let’s hope the zone is well-conceived and positioned to encourage the greatest possible convergence of people. Nobody loves a white elephant.

Fingers crossed, Launnie.