Locally minded Red Park serves sandwiches by day, and pizza and cocktails by night. Plus, more new openings to visit in nearby Geelong and beyond.
Ocean Grove’s new all-rounder venue Red Park is so geared towards its local community that couple Matt Roberts and Jess Bax delayed the opening until after the tourist season was over.
“This is a place for locals and the Bellarine Peninsula,” says Roberts, who made the sea change to Ocean Grove during COVID. “You won’t get through the winter without them.”
As a co-owner of Heartattack and Vine and former owner of Sunhands, two Carlton hotspots that seamlessly transition from day to night, Roberts has mastered the all-day formula. And it’s translated well to a park-adjacent site that’s half a kilometre from the beach.
“So many spots down here do their one thing really well – the surf club, Ming [Terrace] for Chinese, The Mex – but what I felt was lacking was somewhere that does it all in one.”
Red Park’s morning offer caters to the surf crowd with takeaway coffee, pastries from locally loved Ket Baker, tamago-inspired brekkie rolls, and a couple of simple bagels.
Sandwiches take centre stage at lunch, including a crackly porchetta roll inspired by the one that’s earned Heartattack and Vine many loyal fans over the past decade. Here it’s made with Otway pork, the addition of crunchy slaw, and sambal and Dijon mustard dolloped within the sanger, instead of on the side.
After dark, Red Park morphs into a pizza bar slinging crispy, charry pies made with 48-hour-fermented dough and a few twists, like umami-bomb sugo spiked with tamari.
There’s also some serious drink-making cred here, with Roberts having worked at the acclaimed Bar Americano for Jess’ brother, Matt Bax.
The cocktail background has resulted in super-saline martinis, and Dark and Stormy-esque “Jamaican Black Straps” with spiced rum and ginger beer from Torquay brewery Blackman’s, upping the area’s booze game.
For a low-key vibe, both the deck and window-flanked dining room accept walk-in customers only.
24 Hodgson Street, Ocean Grove, redparkoceangrove.com
Five more new Geelong and Great Ocean Road spots
The leafy Geelong suburb of Newtown is home to a new restaurant, part of the redeveloped Woolstores at the river end of Pakington Street. Called Woolstore (400 Pakington Street, Newtown), the 100-seat venue is serving plates to share that span many different cuisines and influences.
Snacks include Cypriot-style sheftalia sausages, pakora zucchini flowers, tomato and ’nduja arancini, and gildas served with jamon and potato crisps. Chef Eli Grubb (ex-Eureka Hotel and Jack Rabbit Vineyard) is using the parilla grill for mains including Aylesbury duck crown and pork tomahawk steaks.
Meanwhile, striking floor-to-ceiling windows dominate the two-storey space, which has green and brass accents and is by the same developer responsible for 1915 restaurant, another industrial conversion.
Down the Great Ocean Road lies a handful of other new spots for a pitstop. Well-regarded Daylesford wine and cheese merchant Winespeake is about to open a sophomore location seaside (Shop 2, 141 Great Ocean Road, Anglesea), while Geelong sandwich shop Gooleys has doubled down too, bringing its no-frills sangers to a surfy new outpost (27 Gilbert Street, Torquay).
Nearby in Lorne, the former site of chef David Moyle’s short-lived beach tavern The Clam is now a third location for popular Surf Coast Vietnamese eatery Pholklore (82 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne), and Apollo Bay has welcomed homey new wholefoods cafe Shelter (1 Hardy Street, Apollo Bay).
With Gail Thomas
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