Chef and restaurateur Brigitte Hafner is best known for her much-loved two-hatted restaurant Tedesca Osteria in Red Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, where farm-to-table philosophy is her way of life.

Now she’s upping the game (set and match) with a premium dining experience at the AO Glasshouse as part of the Australian Open – where her regional 30-seater has its big moment in the city for a spot at the table (plus a good seat inside Rod Laver Arena) for $1200.

Until 2020, Hafner ran Fitzroy’s now-closed Gertrude Street Enoteca with business partner James Broadway for 16 years. As the pandemic loomed, she made the switch to regional Victoria with her architect husband Patrick Ness and opened Tedesca Osteria, which has risen to the top of Australia’s restaurant scene.

Moving to the Peninsula was a no-brainer, a chance to realise a countryside dream, with Ness renovating their family mudbrick house – which is conveniently situated alongside the couple’s farm and restaurant, with two large gardens Hafner plucks produce from daily.

“The Mornington Peninsula is a big dream realised for us, and we’re loving it here. I am deeply happy where we are at, and what we’ve created”, says Hafner.

“I do still like to keep my toe in Melbourne, and the tennis has been an interesting exercise for me to understand. It’s a chance to take me out of my bubble, and while I can’t do what I do at Tedesca there, that’s been the thrilling aspect of this collaboration to do something really different.”

Ahead of the Australian Open taking place in Melbourne from January 12 to 26, Hafner took some time out to share her eating-in and eating-out favourites – and fond memories.

Eating Out

Favourite Melbourne spots

I do love going to Melbourne, and it feels special when I go out. Di Stasio St Kilda is my go-to place, it always makes me feel extremely special; you can sit at the bar and have a perfect martini. It’s executed so perfectly. The Amalfi tramezzini or fried anchovies and linguine crab is always so perfectly done.
My husband, Patrick, proposed to me over a divine dinner here. It was a huge surprise and since then it’s been one of my favourite restaurants.

Flower Drum is where I recently had my 50th birthday and take my family because it just doesn’t get any better. I hadn’t been for a few years and I was glad that it was still the very best it has always been. We ordered pearl meat sauteed with ginger and spring onions, quail sang choi bao, and sweet and sour pork. My
husband grew up in Hong Kong and it’s still his favourite dish. Roast duck in lotus leaf fried is an absolutely delicious dish, they are famous for it.

At Gimlet, we love to occupy the bar for perfect martinis, oysters and caviar – or beef tartare. We love the table theatre of it, and it’s hard to imagine somewhere we’d rather be. When I need a glass of wine, it’s Geralds Bar in Carlton North.

I always stop in at Cibi in Collingwood for late morning brunch and browse through their beautiful shop. I usually can’t go past picking up some handmade ceramics or perhaps an additional whiskey glass to add to my collection. I always order a flat white with a Traditional Japanese breakfast plate – brown rice, miso and tamagoyaki vegetables.

My Mornington Peninsula picks

My favourite loaf of bread on the Peninsula is from Tuerong Farm (which I buy at Torello farm gate). Jason grows heirloom varieties of wheat and stone mills the flour. I also often go to Millers Bread Kitchen in Dromana where they make great sandwiches, pizza slices and cakes.

Favourite Sydney spots

Dining at Firedoor in Surry Hills was one of our great experiences of 2024. Lennox Hastie’s expertise with fire is crazy. Watching him work the grill is thrilling – he’s like a magician. There was this one dish that I particularly loved of grilled pippis tossed in house-made XO sauce. It was spicy and delicate at the same time and everything was dancing around my mouth. The coral trout collars, which were grilled over paper bark, gave it this intriguing peppery cigar
scent, which was beautiful with the delicateness of the coral trout. That really stood out.

Old favourites include Fratelli Paradiso – our home away from home – where a glass of wine and the pasta of the day makes everything okay, and Sean’s Bondi – a wonderful long lunch experience that feels so Sydney because of the trip down to Bondi.

We have a few go-to bars when we visit Sydney — 10 William St, Bar Copains and Love Tilly Devine. When you don’t get to Sydney very often, it’s nice to somehow still feel like a regular at your favourite places. Josh Niland’s Saint Peter was booked out when we were last in Sydney, but we sat at the bar and had a great time instead at Neil Perry’s new restaurant, Song Bird.

Overseas

I have travelled a lot, but not nearly enough. We went to Singapore in September 2024 for the first time. I ate the best food in the Hawker Market – it was a fishball Teochew soup. I spotted a queue and stuck myself in the line and almost cried it was so good. It was fishballs in a broth with lots of noodles and spicy pork fat friers with pickle and hot chilli.

In Italy, it was a simple slow food osteria called 4 Archi in Milo near Mt Etna in Sicily when I was there two years ago. I ordered a simple dish of handmade pasta with fresh porcini mushrooms and with nothing more than rosemary butter and garlic. This also almost made me cry! I found the old lady who cooked it and gave her a hug.

In Tokyo six years ago, Patrick and I went to Narisawa – a very good Michelin-starred restaurant. I had some of the best Japanese food of my life here. It was very still and quiet and stony inside, but the food was exceptional and we had sea urchin that was pristinely fresh and cold served on a rock of special waters. It had a delicately flavoured essence of the sea liquid around it and citrus that had been pickled. It was divine.

Eating In

My signature dish

I am forever trying out new things at home, though I do have a few go-to things that are a staple.

If it’s a family night at home, it’s usually a Korean rice dish – steamed with a small omelette (from our chickens), fish sauce, mince beef, Gochujang and pickles plus sesame seeds.

The other is to always make a master stock and keep one in the freezer. I make a duck or chicken one and it’s always at the ready.

My guilty pleasure

I don’t suffer from guilt when it comes to food. It’s champagne, and I probably shouldn’t have another one, but I usually do if it’s a great bottle.

The kitchen wisdom I cling to

It’s seasoning. I learned very early on from Kylie Kwong about when to season. It’s essential and many people put the salt at the end, but for me, salt is there to extract flavour, not to add anything. I would say you must always season carefully and purposefully. And, of course, taste as you go.

After I left the great kitchens of [mentors and chefs] Jacques Reymond and Kylie Kwong and I was on my own, I really didn’t have a mentor any more. I wondered, who will show me the way? That’s when I decided I would eat everything that I cooked and learned that the biggest guide is your palette. I train my palette and taste as I go now without fail.

Brigitte Hafner will be cooking at the AO Glasshouse by Tedesca Osteria as part of the Australian Open 2025 in Melbourne from January 12 to 26. Ticket and info here.