Vasse Felix might be a regional pioneer, but this powerhouse has zero interest in trading on reputation alone.
15/20
Contemporary$$
Public holiday long weekends, for those fortunate enough to get them, have long been used as opportunities to recharge. To go for long drives. To enjoy long walks in nature and admire the great outdoors. (At least while we still have them.) To assemble the gang for long lunches.
Margaret River is an excellent destination to do any as well as all of the above, three-day weekend or otherwise. From Cape Naturaliste in the north to Cape Leeuwin in its south, Margies boasts a thrilling array of eating and drinking options, not least along the stretch of Caves Road between Metricup Road and Tom Cullity Drive that makes up part of the Willyabrup region.
Some people spell “Willyabrup” the traditional way with two Ls. Others write it with just one L. Everyone, however, agrees that Willyabrup was where this one-time dairy hub began its transformation to food and wine Valhalla following the planting of the region’s first commercial vineyards in the late ’60s by, among others, doctors Kevin Cullen and the aforementioned Tom Cullity. So begins the story of Margaret River wine. So begin the stories of, respectively, Cullen Wines and Vasse Felix.
While Kevin’s daughter Vanya oversees Cullen’s day-to-day, Vasse was bought by the Holmes à Court family in 1987 and looks very much like a showpiece cellar door managed by an organisation with deep pockets. Admired from afar, its two-storey stone-and-timber digs are a picture of pastoral, ’80s-era country living. Inside though, the sleek ground-floor tasting room – all clean of line and dark of lighting – betrays an interest in contemporary, clean-cut design.
Upstairs, the first-floor restaurant is beautified with equally modern accents – think black steel, sharp angles and a muted palette – yet natural light aplenty, a soaring vaulted ceiling plus the chance to enjoy lunch overlooking the good doctor’s original plantings serve as reminders that you’re in the country and that this is where the opening chapter of Margaret River’s wine story unfolded. The layered, globetrotting cooking, however, looks and tastes unmistakably now.
A salty, puffy “flatbread” calls to mind the savoury anpan doughnuts found at Japanese convenience stores, yet the pickled mussels, fennel and sweet-cooked onion piled atop are distinctly Nordic. There’s a similar east-meets-west groove to the tartare of diced kangaroo bound in a gutsy Korean fermented chilli sauce and moulded onto a grilled rice cake of pleasing crunch and chew: think of it as sushi for discerning UFC bros.
Dishes are named using that cryptic, shopping-list shorthand that was everywhere a decade ago. That last entree, for instance, appears on the menu as “kangaroo, ssamjang, rice, bush tomato ($26)“. Hurrah, then, for smiley staff that are well-drilled, well-informed and happy to decode what’s on the plate. Vasse has long been a benchmark for restaurant service. My latest visit suggests that Tanya Fitzgerald and her team are all-in when it comes to protecting this reputation.
There’s continuity in the kitchen, too. Head chef Cameron Jones worked alongside his predecessor Brendan Pratt, currently kicking goals with the Parker Group. Like Pratt, he’s big on DIY and fermenting, pickling and building up a larder of components to deploy when constructing his highly Instagrammable plates. (Could that be the influence of having a modern art gallery downstairs?) As it was during Pratt’s era, Jones’ brief is to create dishes that complement the wine: a departure from the typical food-and-wine-matching scenario in which the cooking leads the sommelier’s decision-making.
So fatty pork jowl gets charred over charcoal, plated on a rich coconut sauce sweetened with parsnip and mottled with black garlic oil, then concealed under sheaths of sorrel: all in the name of emphasising the zip of Vasse’s compact, modern chardonnays. Matching steak – in this instance, wagyu rump cap of real beefiness enhanced with a silky onion bechamel – with cab sav isn’t exactly surprising, but moving this pairing up the batting order of the tasting menu to before the fish and chardy match certainly is.
It’s one instance of the surprising and ambitious thinking that the Holmes à Courts have brought to Vasse and Margaret River generally. Among other things, the family has organically certified more than 300 hectares of its vineyards, established a dedicated sparkling wine facility at the former Watershed Wines site, and is in the process of resurrecting the Margaret River Hotel in town. Vasse might be the region’s OG vineyard, but sitting on laurels never enters the equation.
Desserts are just as intricate as what preceded them. “Pistachio, cherry, almond, grapefruit” is Jones’ homage to the Mr Kipling Bakewell tarts his nan stashed in the back of her cupboard, albeit remade with frangipane, amaretto custard and freeze-dried citrus, and more, besides. Detailing every element would take longer than eating the thing, so let’s cut to the chase and call it – and the rest of lunch – satisfying and skilful or, for those reading in American English, skillful. Spell it with one L or two, it doesn’t matter. The take-home is this: Vasse Felix remains a vital component in Margaret River’s food and drink landscape.
The low-down
Atmosphere: a polished Margaret River restaurant marching confidently into the future
Go-to dishes: pork jowl, pickled mussels
Drinks: current and museum releases from Vasse Felix, including some buried treasures you’ll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere
Cost: about $165 for two people, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
