Five destination restaurants
These regional restaurants are well worth the drive, reports Andrew Bain.
Burrow into the Coal River Valley for lunch in the sublime setting of Frogmore Creek, looking over the vines to the Mount Pleasant Observatory. The restaurant’s menu focuses on local produce and the food is as inviting as the view, whether you’re dining on Pipe Clay Lagoon oysters, mushroom and truffle arancini or tamarind-glazed Scottsdale pork belly.
This tasty New Norfolk offshoot of the celebrated Agrarian Kitchen Cooking School and Farm fills a ward of the former Willow Court psychiatric hospital, and is a regular on lists of Australia’s best restaurants. Local is law on the menu, whether from the Agrarian’s own garden or surrounding growers, and you can now take away from its kiosk and picnic on the lawn.
Geeveston’s sushi sensation is in the process of moving to a new home inside a former church, but otherwise remains the same – opening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at lunchtime, and shutting up shop when everything is sold out, which can sometimes take less than an hour.
Devouring oysters on the shores of Great Oyster Bay – doesn’t it just sound right? This family-run oyster and mussel farm serves them up fresh from the baskets at its farmgate eatery outside of Coles Bay, along with crayfish, scallops, abalone and salmon. Sit out on the deck for a seafood picnic stripped back to its barest and best.
Credit: Tourism Tasmania and Andrew Wilson.
Credit: Tourism Tasmania and Adrian Cook
Credit: Tourism Tasmania and Adrian Cook
Tasmanian Food and Wine Conservatory
Set in a stunning garden setting, this beautifully refurbished conservatory sits beside the Bass Highway near Sassafras. The floor and tables are covered in plants, but it’s the platters of exclusively Tasmanian produce (and the similarly parochial providore shelves) that are the real drawcard.
