New regional restaurants, bars and cellar doors around Australia 2017
Need proof regional Australia is experiencing a hospitality boom? Here are the latest openings outside the city limits.
Elderton Wines Cellar Door
Second-generation Elderton Wines owners Cameron and Allister Ashmead open the family's Barossa Valley homestead as the label's new cellar door on October 6. Owned by the Ashmead family since 1979, the restored homestead features four private tasting rooms, an art gallery and a 1500-bottle glass-walled cellar showcasing Elderton's back-catalogue.
3-5 Tanunda Road, Nuriootpa, South Australia, 08 8568 7878, eldertonwines.com.au
Fumo
Joe Campbell, who cooked at Vulcan's for 10 years under influential chef Phillip Searle, returned to Blackheath in June, renaming the restaurant Fumo and rekindling his acquaintance with the scotch oven. The focus is on Asian flavours and braises, often involving the oven.
33 Govetts Leap Road, Blackheath, New South Wales, 02 4787 6899, fumorestaurant.com.au
Hong Sa Bar, Spirit House
Massaman lamb party pies? Mooloolaba prawns with tom yum mayo? Crack another Singha and let the good times roll. Spirit House has long been a destination for its exceptional Thai food and tropical gardens and now Hong Sa Bar is another reason to visit. A mood-lit interior suits lemongrass-spiked martinis while a sunny courtyard warrants bar snacks and ginger mojitos.
20 Ninderry Road, Yandina, Queensland, 07 5446 8994, spirithouse.com.au
Inverleigh Cellar & Restaurant
In September, chef-restaurateur Matt Dempsey retired his hatted restaurant Gladioli in a pretty Victorian town south-west of Melbourne and opened Inverleigh Cellar and Restaurant. The menu – charcuterie, grilled half chickens with corn salsa, flank steak with chimichurri – is designed around the collection housed in the wine wall.
14 High Street, Inverleigh, Victoria, 03 5265 1111, gladiolirestaurant.com.au
Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel
Robin Wickens is still working on the menu for opening night at his new restaurant, 270 kilometres west of Melbourne, on October 21. He'll design it around what's best in the Royal Mail Hotel's extensive kitchen gardens. The new space, built to take in views of Mount Sturgeon, will seat about 40, while the previous dining room becomes all-day diner Parker Street Project.
98 Parker Street, Dunkeld, Victoria, 03 5577 2241, royalmail.com.au
Yarri
After 21 years at Margaret River winery Vasse Felix, chef Aaron Carr has a new project. Alongside Tony and Sal Davis and Redmond Sweeny from Snake + Herring winery, he's opening Yarri restaurant and bar in the coastal WA town of Dunsborough. Yarri, the local name for the blackbutt gums that surround the restaurant, will showcase WA produce and wine. They're gunning for a December opening.
Dunsborough, Western Australia
Roslyn Grundy is Good Food’s recipe editor.