This brilliant waterfront hideaway at a little-known Mornington Peninsula boat harbour is a delightful discovery.
Sorry-not-sorry if you want to keep Cptn Jack’s to yourself. This brilliant waterfront hideaway is a secret no longer. The pretty shack at little-known Yaringa Boat Harbour sees chef Matt Knoops (ex-Pt Leo Estate) cooking local ingredients over wood-fire in a country-coastal restaurant an hour from the city.
Why have we never heard about the seaside delights of Somerville? Probably because when longtime boatbuilder Malcolm Hart and wife Lizzie bought the harbour in 2018, it was a rundown little boat-park carved into mangrove swamps on Western Port Bay. The empty restaurant at the top of the wharf was a rather shambolic shack.
“[Captain Jack] is every woman’s dream man and the guy every man wants to be.”
Lizzie Hart
In the years since, Malcolm has sharpened up the shipping side of the enterprise and is set to move his Mornington factory here (he supplies police and pilot boats around the world).
Lizzie Hart, who ran an interiors shop in Mt Eliza, took her husband’s suggestion that she apply a lick of paint to the restaurant rather more seriously. She rebuilt the kitchen with a wood oven, gave the chefs a cheery sea view, then turned the dining room into a refreshingly cliche-free but still evocatively nautical destination with an old rowboat skeleton strapped to the ceiling and brass ship fittings dotted here and there.
It’s a pleasure to be here, whether you’re in the main dining room with its stone fireplace or closer to the water on the sheltered deck.
Manager Fabio Candolo (previously at Flinders restaurant Moke) runs the dining room with a keen, friendly team that is still schooling up on a few hospitality basics, such as how to efficiently clear and reset tables.
Knoops runs an unfussy menu that leans towards seafood and Mornington Peninsula producers. Thursday is locals night (but you can go, too); the $49 set menu of shareable comfort food is extraordinary value.
You might snack on excellent rock oysters and a fried bun scented with rosemary and stuffed with duck liver parfait. There’s always flatbread topped, perhaps, with smoky eggplant or burrata and pistachio-basil butter.
Barramundi might be served with almond and capers, or with parsley and confit lemon, while wood-roasted prawns are doused with chilli butter. House-made tagliatelle is tangled with spanner crab.
Desserts are simple: maybe chocolate mousse with peanut butter parfait, or mini pavlova with seasonal berries.
It’s generous food, never tricky, well-seasoned and buttery, leaning Mediterranean in the lee of Western Port.
Cptn Jack is an old sea dog character Lizzie Hart concocted with her sister. “He’s every woman’s dream man and the guy every man wants to be,” she told me.
Jack loved many ladies but none more than the mermaid he followed to the bottom of the sea. I won’t suggest you model yourself on Jack but I will happily advise you to visit his namesake restaurant for good food and fine cheer.
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