From tiny wine bars to fine diners with sweeping views, regional NSW has never been a better place to eat.
The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide reviewer team has clocked up thousands of kilometres, hundreds of courses, several small tarts and one lemon delicious pudding made with emu eggs to announce this year’s finalists for NSW Regional Restaurant of the Year. The winner will be revealed at the Good Food Guide Awards on October 13 and published in a free magazine with the Herald the next day.
That emu egg pudding was at The Zin House in Mudgee, by the way, one of many longstanding regional restaurants reviewed for the 41st edition of the Guide. While there hasn’t been a large number of new restaurants opening outside of Sydney compared to the past few years (the post-COVID regional dining boom will likely never be repeated), established venues are hunkering down and honing their craft, and NSW has never been a better place to eat.
The most significant thing this year’s finalists have in common: an uncompromising dedication to work with farmers, fishers and artisan food producers in their regions. Often, the livestock, fruit and vegetables will come from the restaurant’s own property too.
And sweeping country views are nice and all, but by no means necessary for an excellent lunch. (Cases in point, Bangalow’s You Beauty and Bistro Livi in Murwillumbah, Regional Restaurant of the Year winners the past two years respectively. Both are in the middle of town surrounded by bottle shops and bakeries.) Give us local beetroot salad in the main street of Orange over farmed barramundi trucked in from interstate any day.
Bistro Penny, Newcastle
Don’t miss the tomatoes when they’re in season at this Novocastrian newcomer that’s all brooding leather, terrazzo, original sandstone and cedar. Owner-chef Joel Humphreys douses Ferrari-red ox-hearts in enough chilli oil to hold your attention, but never overpower the tomatoes’ heightened tomato-ness; pickled onion and lovage add further punch, and the salad is great mates with boudin noir – here, a warmly spiced slab of blood and pig’s head pudding on fromage blanc cheese. Sydney chef Nic Wong is a business partner and helps out on the floor while Humphreys turns cranks on a mighty grill that can cook anything from scallops with chicken-fat bearnaise to whole pig.
Must order: Any dish starring produce from local grower Dylan Abdoo at Newcastle Greens.
8-10 Bolton Street, Newcastle East, bistropenny.com.au
EXP. Restaurant, Hunter Valley
A decade in the restaurant business is no small feat, and EXP. has done it the long way; moving, adding a bakery-cafe, then going all-in on fine-dining. Slowly, suddenly, it’s become the most exciting restaurant in the Hunter, the whole show sharpened to a fine point. It starts with snacks: pie-tee cases piped full of beetroot and sour cream shipping orbs of salmon roe; wagyu tartare tart overloaded with chives. But there’s high-grade technique and pops of intense and surprising flavours all through the tasting menu. The wine list is confident enough to look outside the postcode, while still backing emerging and established locals.
Best for: Top-tier Hunter Valley tasting menu, with soul.
2188 Broke Road, Pokolbin, exprestaurant.com.au
Hey Rosey, Orange
Now here’s a template for how to “farm to table” properly. Hey Rosey is essentially one big hallway, flanked by a meat slicer, small oven and mid-century bric-a-brac, and locals can’t get enough of the food and Orange wines (plus a fair showing of French bottles and amaro for good measure). The daily changing menu is largely based on what farmers are dropping off that week. “Farmer Doug’s” midnight pearl variety potatoes, for instance, are deep-purple, dense and nutty – brilliant for salt-baking and topping with quark and roe.
Must order: Cavatelli pasta with pork collar ragu is perfect for a cabernet-shiraz made by Orange legend Philip Shaw under his Hoosegg label.
301 Summer Street, Orange, heyrosey.au
Megalong Restaurant, Blue Mountains
This plush restaurant serves eight courses of produce often sourced from the surrounding Lot 101 farm, and chef Colin Barker’s menu speaks to fine dining the way it used to be done. There might be a crisp tartlet of blue oyster mushrooms and salted egg yolk to start, leading to a tender fillet of crisp-skinned Murray cod accessorised with tiny broccoli tips, baby leeks and chickpea miso. Later, the richness of rosy Speckle Park steak is foiled by a silken Japanese turnip puree and cut with bitter, peppery wilted radicchio. Settle in for pure comfort.
Good to know: The modern-classic dining room features sweeping bushland views wherever you’re sitting.
3/7 Peach Tree Road, Megalong Valley, megalongrestaurant.com.au
The Zin House, Mudgee
Type “pastoral farm-to-table restaurant” into Google Image Search and you’ll probably get a picture of somewhere that looks very much like Zin House, a 10-minute drive from Mudgee’s town centre. Regional food hero Kim Currie runs the Lowe Family Wine Co restaurant, complete with vases of wattle, vineyard views and an invitation to wander the permaculture garden between courses. A five-course menu often features lamb raised on the property, perhaps forequarter braised overnight in a carry-over stock and served with just-harvested vegetables.
Good to know: Guests can book a free tasting at the cellar door after nougat and house-grown herbal tea.
329 Tinja Lane, Mudgee, lowefamilywineco.com.au
