Across 400 hectares, Barragunda Estate rears cattle, grows wheat and transforms its harvest into Middle Eastern-influenced tasting menus. But the real goal is to rejuvenate people.
Food-to-table director. Head regenerative officer. Producer-in-chief. It’s hard to encapsulate in a single job title what Simone Watts does at Barragunda Estate. She’s modestly settled on “chef and farmer”, but that only hints at what she’s spent nearly five years building on a secluded Cape Schanck property, now home to one of Australia’s most ambitious farm-to-table experiences.
Barragunda’s 400 hectares provide Watts and her team with lamb, olives, nashi pears, rye grain, lemongrass, Angus beef, garlic, honey, grapefruit – the list goes on. When guests arrive, they walk past a wall of brightly coloured preserves: green almonds, baby radishes, slender fennel.
The restaurant could be the Mornington Peninsula’s most significant opening of the decade. (Red Hill’s two-hatted Tedesca Osteria, another life-defining farm-to-table project, is the only other that comes close.)
In addition to the fine-dining restaurant opening to the public on February 21, Barragunda is home to a regenerative farm, a collective of growers, an online produce store, a wedding venue, and – its owners hope – a blueprint for the future of regional dining.
Watts (whose resume includes hatted Coda and Greg Malouf’s MoMo) imagined Barragunda would take about six months to launch. But various planning delays gave her and Hayley Morris – whose family owns the property and pubs such as Portsea Hotel – time to think big.
Watts calls her catalogue of preserves the Barragunda Bible. When it comes to writing menus, she pores over the “Bible” and the latest harvest list from farm hand Karl Breese. Watts, who lives on the estate, also takes morning runs through the orchards and along garden paths to get ideas flowing.
It’s a very different process to how she – and many contemporary chefs – usually come up with dishes.
“You might put an order in for eggplant and your stock-standard eggplant will arrive in a box, whereas we’ve got four or five different varieties growing,” she says.
“It’s so rewarding when you’re finally putting things on the plate, and eight or nine months ago you were deciding that particular species was going to be sown.”
The opening menu includes pissaladiere tart in tiny Danish form, with fermented green almonds subbing in for the traditional olive, and almond cream squiggled on top. Mussels from Flinders supplier Harry’s are served in a spiced white wine reduction, with fried mussels and sunflower miso.
The influence of Watts’ mentor, the late Greg Malouf, is peppered throughout. Small merguez sausages made with the estate’s lamb (reared for longer than usual to get more flavour and yield) are paired with ezme, the Turkish salsa featuring diced tomatoes, cucumber and peppers. The sausage is smoked over a large wood-fired hearth that was shipped in from the much-celebrated Adelaide Hills restaurant The Summertown Aristologist.
There’s also “an ode” to Malouf in a dessert of citrus-blossom honey, semolina, cardamom, preserved stone fruit and cream.
Morris hopes guests will feel the difference after eating the 10-dish tasting menu ($145), where just-picked, “nutrient-dense” vegetables are the star. A long-time advocate for local food systems that are kinder to the environment, she felt a restaurant was the perfect way to show people what’s possible.
“In an environment where [people] feel relaxed and somewhat connected to nature … they’re much more responsive.”
Barragunda joins a growing number of destination diners worldwide striving to showcase values as much as deliciousness. Three-hatted Brae in Victoria’s Otways, The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania, and Le Doyenne in France all farm their own food and, for the most part, only cook what they can grow.
Here, the farm supplies the restaurant, but surplus produce is sold online via The Collective. Growers in the collective also help each other with mulching and more, and local businesses use the restaurant’s kitchen when it’s closed to make cheese, pastries and other products.
When Watts looked at other farm-to-table restaurants she admired, she noticed they all had a true sense of place. She wanted diners at Barragunda to look out and see the beds that grew the radishes and other crudites that kick off a meal – or even walk around before lunch.
“You get a real feeling of peace and joy when you come to this property. And I don’t think that’s just about the dining experience … It’s largely about connection to country and place,” she says.
The 40-seat dining room, with its pitched roof of spotted gum, feels a little like a barn. Terracotta tiles, earthenware plates, and arrangements of grasses and flowers grown on the property give a strong sense of the natural world.
Future plans include farm tours for diners, workshops on native revegetation or cheese-making, and talks and tours for fellow philanthropists interested in food systems. While there’s no accommodation on-site, it has been discussed – and Morris and Watts don’t seem to shy away from a challenge.
Lunch Friday-Monday; dinner Saturday
113 Cape Schanck Road, Cape Schanck, barragunda.com.au
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne eating out and restaurant editor.
