GT 2022 Restaurant of the Year
GT 2022 Vic Restaurant of the Year
It starts at the front door, a hand-tooled thing of beauty that signals both attention to detail and a penchant for the singular and hand-crafted. It’s evident inside too, particularly with the kitchen being in the dining room, with chef-owner Brigitte Hafner rolling pasta on the blackened timber bench against a backdrop of the brick hearth’s flames licking at ducks, or pork, or vegetables. It has a dinner at a friend’s place vibe, underlined by the laidback service and the single seating policy, so lunch stretches to leisurely hours that include a visit to the wine cellar or a stroll around the gardens. The menu’s loose script is antipasto, pasta, fish, meat and dessert but how that manifests depends on what’s being produced nearby. Perhaps local mussels, loosened on the grill and tossed through pasta, suckling lamb flavoured with herbs and wine, or a berry tart. It is all good, often sublime, including the wine from a geographically diverse list. A must.
1175 Mornington-Flinders Rd, Red Hill, Vic, tedesca.com.au
The poetic list of ingredients that is Brae’s dégustation menu (“raspberries/apples/thirty-eight different varieties of tomato/late potatoes”) spruiks the abundance of chef-owner Dan Hunter’s organic farm, while cleverly underplaying the beauty and intricacy to follow. Indeed, there are dishes here – a deep purple quince paste jelly topped with pink finger lime; the signature cannoli-channelling parsnip and apple dessert; a pastel, precisely plated prawn and kohlrabi hand roll – presented so prettily that consuming them seems borderline desecration. But desecrate away because the flavours Hunter conjures banish any pang of regret. His high-low balancing act (from delicate, perfect, hand-plucked leaves from the garden to hearty wood-roasted Berkshire pork served with hot sauce) is one of Australia’s great food offerings. A graceful room, engaged service, a wine list deserving of its own fan base and garden walking paths that guide you through your meal’s origin story bring an experience that’s unforgettable, educational and unmissable.
4285 Cape Otway Rd, Birregurra, Vic, braerestaurant.com
Aaron Turner is a fine dining pit master whose elemental vision of cooking yields greatness across a mysterious six-course dégustation menu revealed only in the delivery. Conjuring fire, coals and smoke in the open kitchen, Turner has created one of regional Australia’s best restaurants in a prosaic Geelong laneway. His menu, which varies from day to day and even from table to table, is a leap into the unknown, but you could make a trip based purely on the opening snack salvo – emu bresaola, crisp chicken skin with taramasalata or tiny pickled vegetables leaning into their briny crunch – before the ante is upped with an innovative parade of road-less-travelled flavour and texture combinations. Harmonising with the menu, the wine list champions the local and the minimal intervention. Add the unflappable service of maître d’ and co-owner Joanna Smith and Igni is the best thing to happen to Geelong since the Cats won the flag in 2011.
Ryan Pl, Geelong, Vic, restaurantigni.com
Lake House provides many applause-worthy moments. Some cheer this restaurant, hotel and spa for revolutionising regional hospitality in Australia, helping to embed the idea of regional, seasonal eating in our culinary canon. Others appreciate the sublime setting, the landscaped gardens and elegant accommodation, the lake views and birdlife that spirit you away to a better, more delicious place. But it’s the restaurant that is the heart of the experience. Owner and culinary director Alla Wolf-Tasker creates menus that evoke the surrounding countryside. Veggies from the restaurant’s own Dairy Flat Farm – from artichokes and asparagus to tomatoes and turnips – might be teamed with great, often locally sourced duck or pork or fish, cooked with skill and finesse by head chef Brendan Walsh. Combining Asian and European influences with relaxed Australian attitude, a brilliant and extensive wine list and service that perfectly matches the laid-back elegance, Lake House deserves every ovation.
4 King St, Daylesford, Vic, lakehouse.com.au
It’s the little restaurant that could. The Bertoncello brothers – Blayne in the kitchen, Chayse running the floor and the wine – first grabbed attention in 2013 when their low-waste farm-to-table concept ran head-on into the zeitgeist. Since then, they’ve gone bigger and better. Their own nearby farm provides all the fruit and vegetables, what’s not used fresh is preserved and used in other inventive ways. Expect the dégustation menu to feature a stunning one-veg wonder: an ethereal celebration of Jerusalem artichoke that sees the tuber roasted, puréed, fried and pickled, a rich egg yolk dip the only interloper. In keeping with the ethos, protein plays a lesser role but makes every appearance count, such as a charry skewer of calamari and marinated zucchini basted in onion jus. A fire gutted the restaurant in 2020 but the doughty Bertoncellos have kept on keeping on, and made us love O.My even more.
70 Princes Hwy, Beaconsfield, Vic, omyrestaurant.com.au
Last year, Provenance chef Michael Ryan – facing seemingly insurmountable hurdles – transformed his already excellent Japanese-leaning fine diner into something better still. The former scientist took to fermenting and distilling anything that stood still long enough. He appraised the eight-course set menu format and found it wanting. The experience now resembles the kaiseki menus of ryokan bathhouses – 18 dishes delivered in four waves. The riot of colour, slow food and ceramics begins with a silky prawn with vinegar jelly, myriad pickles and a soft lobe of poached kohlrabi with salted plum – umeboshi. There may be plush duck ham, or hand-cut udon noodles slippery with tonkotsu, or maybe sweet-salty lacto-fermented pumpkin, double dashed with its own seeds both as oil and furikake. Supported by Damian Moylan’s impeccable sake and hyper-local wine selections (and Ryan’s own amari) and that historic room, elegantly refreshed in late 2019, this Beechworth star has never shone brighter.
86 Ford St, Beechworth, Vic, theprovenance.com.au
Open just two days a week and with only 16 seats, Underbar (oon-de-bar) plays a great game of hard-to-get. But the magic happening in this brilliant little diner behind a prosaic, unmarked Ballarat shopfront both explains and justifies the wait. Chef-owner Derek Boath, an alumnus of New York’s multi-Michelin Per Se, creates constantly changing, seasonally driven dégustation menus; 10-ish courses of adventurous, clever, original, but – best of all – completely delicious food that can have you planning a return visit before you’ve completed the current one. It’s a menu full of highlights, perhaps a chawanmushi threaded with crab meat, a perfectly cooked sliver of lamb rump served with bread and butter pickle and romesco sauce, or a dessert that makes the most of wild blackberries, dark chocolate and frozen meringue. There’s a great drinks pairing too, which might include both vintage cider and kombucha. The room is minimalist, the service warm, the encounter unforgettable.
3 Doveton St North, Ballarat, Vic, underbar.com.au
