Four new regional restaurants that offer great dining, with a twist
Four recently opened regional restaurants are serving delicious food but a little something extra to their dining experience.
Want to dine alongside live bees or alpacas? You can do it in Grampians or Gippsland respectively. You can also have fresh produce picked from the garden and on your plate minutes later at the Aire Valley Guesthouse on the Great Ocean Road near Cape Otway or head to the Yarra Valley enjoy top level French cuisine at Bulong Estate from a third generation French chef.
Salingers Café, 98 Main Street, Great Western Ph: (03) 5356 2211
It’s not often you can sit down to a meal surrounded by bees and not be in fear of being stung…however at new café Salingers, in the Grampians, this is exactly the experience that guests get.
The café which regularly features locally produced honey and honeycomb on its menu, has its own resident beehive, and visitors to the dining space can watch the colony live at work, from a special glassed off observation area.
Seating up to 50 in cosy indoors or in the sunny courtyard, Salingers is open from Wednesday to Sunday serving top notch coffee, cake and lunches.
Salingers cafe is a great place to rest and revive as part of a Grampians cellar door excursion, with the iconic Seppelt’s Cellar Door, Best’s Wines and Grampians Estate Great Western Wine Centre all nearby. The cafe is also ideally located for visitors on route from Melbourne or Ballarat to the Grampians National Park.
Aire Valley Guest House, 2590 Great Ocean Road, Hordern Vale Ph (03) 5237 9223
Aire Valley Guest House specialises in the very best fresh food, and we mean fresh!
The restaurant makes its dishes based on what is available in it’s own back garden – which, depending on the season, overflows with a staggering mix of vegetables, herbs, fruit and berries, grown using organic methods.
Upon ordering, guests can go outside with the chef and pick their own vegetables and herbs, and then have it brought to them minutes later in their meal.
The restaurant employs two gardeners to ensure the quality of the produce at all times and also keeps it local wherever possible with its other ingredients sourcing their meat from Colac and fish from local Victorian waters.
Chef and owner Annabel Tunley, formerly employed at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish residence owned by British royal family and favourite summer retreat to Queen Elizabeth II, and the French influence of the menu comes from her time in Courchevel, France.
Bulong Estate, 70 Summerhill Rd, Yarra Junction Ph: (03) 5967 2487
A recent addition to the Yarra Valley, the restaurant at Bulong Estate has been earning raves for its remarkable French chef, Antoine Cheron. A third generation member from a family of Normandy restauranteurs, Cheron trained and worked in the prestigious kitchens of Normandy, Paris and London. Since moving to Australia he has absorbed a fusion of cuisines while working in Brisbane, Sydney and in the Yarra Valley alongside top chefs. Antoine brings French flair and technical expertise to the Bulong Estate restaurant, with a menu that changes seasonally to reflect available local produce matched with fine Estate wines.
Nickelby At Darnum, 308 Darnum Shady Creek Road, Darnum Ph: (03)5627 8121
Nickelby at Darnum, a working alpaca stud, has just opened its own outdoor café. Guests can now enjoy freshly ground coffee, chocolate fudge cake, hot chocolates while enjoying bird’s eye views of the alpacas. The café adds some indoor seating in the winter months.
There is also a farm gate shop on the property selling beautiful alpaca garments and products made from fine Australian fleece, including throw rugs, jumpers, coats, scarves, hats and doonas. Also sold at the shop is owner Angela’s own range of high quality creams and soaps.