Stop for a dry-aged cheeseburger or steak Diane pie – or settle in for a long, wine-matched lunch at these Good Food-approved Hunter Valley venues.
It’s always a good move to hit the classics during a long weekend in Australia’s oldest wine region. Taste Tyrrell’s Vat 1 semillon in the dirt-floored cellar. Visit the Brokenwood HQ. Swirl shiraz at Mount Pleasant. Among the heavy-hitters, though, next-gen winemakers (Sabi Wabi, Majama and Gunpowder are fine examples) are pushing things forward.
Harkham has a cellar door showing off its exceptional small-batch wines (and there’s no better place for sundowners, especially with a new wine bar on the cards), but perhaps the best way to try the rest of them is to book the tasting menu at Muse Restaurant and add the Young Guns of the Hunter pairing for $95. EXP. Restaurant pours plenty as well, and its degustation just so happens to be the most exciting in the Valley.
Meanwhile, snacks and a tasting in the bucolic courtyard at Margan are another way to get to grips with the winery’s sustainable credentials outside of the restaurant itself, while Bistro Molines does picturesque French dining with old-school charm.
Those are the big names, but the bits around the edges are just as exciting. The dry-aged burgers at Burgers by HMC, for example, are some of the best in the state, the patties made next door at artisan butcher Hungerford Meats Co, which is the place to pick up heritage-breed, pasture-raised cuts to throw on the Airbnb barbecue and pair with the loot from a winery crawl. But where to start, where to finish, and where to stop in between? We have the breakdown.
Muse Restaurant
The setting here, at the Hunter’s foremost dining institution, can feel a bit Big Winery Restaurant, but there’s no chef in the region offering a more personal experience than Troy Rhoades-Brown. His freshly installed home garden provides hirosaki turnips for a dish of steamed Murray cod underscored with savoury dashi cream. And he draws on it again for a signature dish of heritage pork (today it’s loin with bubbly crackling, tomorrow another cut, perhaps salt-baked or grilled over ironbark) with pumpkin and black garlic. He throws a Hail Mary with a main course of glazed Mother Fungus mushrooms and sticks it, while optional snacks – mulberry-glazed beef in togarashi among them – should be mandatory. Meanwhile, a fierce dedication to upskilling local staff has made Muse the region’s leading talent pipeline. No surprise, then, that the floor, kitchen and drinks service is in such perfect harmony.
2450 Broke Road, Pokolbin, musedining.com.au
EXP. Restaurant
Ten years in the business is no small feat, and EXP. has done it the long way; moving, adding a bakery-cafe, then going on all-in 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. Take the duck, the breast smoked and glazed in honey, the leg stuffed into nasturtium, the fat whipped into a hollandaise. Or figs caramelised like black garlic then baked into pudding sauced with apple-miso butterscotch. The wine list is confident enough to look outside the postcode, while still backing emerging and established locals. Want to know where the Hunter is headed? It’s right here.
2188 Broke Road, Pokolbin, exprestaurant.com.au
Margan Restaurant
The Broken Back Range plays backdrop to vines, the organic garden groans: as far as cellar doors go, Margan’s is one of the most idyllic, and there’s plenty to be said for a visit to the tasting bench followed by a stint in the sunny courtyard with a charcuterie platter. But then another way to get across Margan’s range of sustainably produced wines is at lunch, alongside a tasting menu that draws on the garden, orchard and olive groves. They hit two out of three in an opening flurry of plates, with Ceres Hill olives landing alongside garden crudites to drag through sunflower-seed tahini. Pre-cut sourdough can dry out, but a cobia tartare sharpened with blood orange is all the better with homegrown baby cos leaves. Mains play it safe, but using estate lambs is admirable, while creme caramel scented with Margan’s own off-sweet vermouth for dessert is a fortifying finish.
1238 Milbrodale Road, Broke, margan.com.au
Smelly Cheese Shop
Stocking the fridge? Smelly Cheese Shop offers a wide range of fromage and charcuterie, much of it made locally. Home-brand cheeses run from triple-cream brie to washed rind and marinated cow’s feta. Cold cuts include duck or wild-boar and fennel salami. And the fridges and cabinets are stocked with sandwiches and pies to keep you fuelled for the road ahead. Elsewhere, Binnorie Dairy takes you straight to the source, with the cheese shop open daily for tastings of everything from brie made with local cow’s milk to washed rind, chevre and labne.
Shop 3, Pokolbin Village, 2188 Broke Road, Pokolbin, smellycheese.net.au
Bistro Molines
Refreshingly old-school and unaffected, Bistro Molines presents more like a lived-in Provencal mas than a classic Hunter-style Big Winery Restaurant, with cloths on the tables, plates and breadboards on the walls, and dainty ceramics and sweets covering the antique table. The food is farmhouse fare, too. Hew to the sunny hand-illustrated carte for the day’s specials; scan the handwritten one-pager for cocktails and wines by the glass. On the menu proper it’s a two or three-course affair, perhaps smoked quail with the ribs removed, served on a mini cassoulet softened with choucroute, then hefty crumbed cutlets, cooked medium and garnished with olive-flecked zucchini. Food comes out hot, and salad wears its dressing as lightly as career waiters wear their easy charm, while the elevated position gives views of autumnal leaves and – sure – rolling vineyards. Timeless elegance, with just enough invention.
749 Mount View Road, Mount View, bistromolines.com.au
Burgers by HMC
What if a veteran chef, with experience in some of the world’s better kitchens, took over a regional butcher shop and started dealing in sustainably reared, grass-fed, rare-breed animals? If they started supplying top restaurants, making their own charcuterie and going in to bat for local producers? We don’t have to wonder, thanks to Michael Robinson, who made it come true in Branxton back in 2016. We also don’t have to wonder what it would look like if he started selling burgers next door. Just roll up Monday to Saturday: the grill is firing and the queue is forming. They’re here for $12 dry-aged cheeseburgers on soft, sweet potato buns, or specials that might start at porchetta rolls and extend to house-made smoked pork, jalapeno and cheddar snags loaded with pickles, fried onions and dog sauce. Thought the Hunter was all fine-dining? HMC would like a word.
47 Maitland Street, Branxton, burgers-by-hmc.square.site
Jimmy Joans
This is one for the locals. For drop-in, drop-out coffee in the morning. For a seat on the grass with a grazing board and a firepit. For Sunday roasts and lamb shoulders to share. For an antidote to so many visits to big-ticket winery restaurants. But this isn’t a case of Jimmy of all trades, master of none. Just look at the finesse in that house-crafted pork and pistachio terrine. The golden crumb of the fillet in the fish roll. Scotch eggs and Manhattans are given the same level of attention, whether you’re sitting at the bar or in the dining room, and a fairly priced children’s menu means it’s fun for the whole family.
84 Wilderness Road, Rothbury, jimmyjoans.com.au
Arthur’s
This breezy cafe is Cessnock’s ground zero for specialty drinks (from the Central Coast’s Glee Coffee Roasters, no less), including cold brew, strawberry matcha, cold-pressed juice, and (after 10) mimosas and spritzes. There’s no ground being broken here, but it’s up-to-the-minute minimalist chic, and the brunch menu knows the hits and plays them well, from chilli scrambled eggs and a BAE roll, through to yuzu bircher or a spicy Korean chicken burger. One more plus? It’s open daily.
1E Cooper Street, Cessnock, arthurspantry.com.au
Meltdown
Wine in the Hunter is easy. Coffee? Less so. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few spots to keep on the radar for your morning brew. Frank Fawkner from two-hatted EXP. Restaurant vouches for Meltdown, occupying a corner site on the border of Branxton and Huntlee. The reason? Single-origin espresso, house blends from Newcastle’s Floozy Coffee Roasters and iced matcha that’s just the right balance of bitter and sweet. The fit-out is sunny and bright, with ochre accents from a central tiled coffee counter. On the plate? How about a fresh spin on cilbir, the Turkish egg dish ramped up with green harissa and dippy bread, or a bacon-egg roll with Old Bay barbecue sauce? Add occasional dinners and pop-ups with winemakers and it’s an essential stop-off, night or day.
5 Winepress Road, Branxton, meltdowncoffee.com
Piehole
Regional towns and retro bakeries go hand in hand. How else are you going to spill icing sugar and pastry flakes all down your front on a road trip, anyway? Pull into the Cessnock shopfront and the counters are stocked with Aussie classics, from apple turnovers filled to bursting, to towering vanilla slices filled with custard and white-as-snow cream and capped with perfectly piped cream and caramel. The pies are not to be missed either, especially the steak diane and the chilli mango chicken, if it’s on. “Pies to pastry and everything tasty” reads the sign underneath the cartoon mascot. And while your mother might have said never to trust the words of a cartoon pie eating a smaller pie, in this case, it’s absolutely right.
138 Wollombi Road, Cessnock, facebook.com/Piehole138
Trading Post Laguna
If you’re coming or going the long way, swing past sleepy Laguna where Rosanna Marsh runs one hell of a rest stop at Trading Post Laguna, which operates as a bakery, general store and wine shop. Smoke curls over the valley from the open fire, vines clamber over the corrugated tin roof. Coffee is Allpress, brunch is wholesome, and dinner (Fridays only) could be beef dolmades followed by beef and Guinness pot pie. In nearby Wollombi? Don’t miss the chance to pull into the Wollombi Tavern for a steak sandwich, live music on the deck and the opportunity to have a swig of Dr. Jurd’s Jungle Juice, the legendary local concoction.
3718 Great North Road, Laguna, tradingpostlaguna.com
Mayne St
Pushing into the Upper Hunter? Pull into sleepy Murrurundi. The population may be under 900, but there’s plenty to see here. Take Mayne St, a cafe, homewares shop and pantry run by husband and wife team Kieran French and Emma Taylor, who transformed a run-down building into a local favourite, offering avocado and whipped ricotta toast, cult chilli scrambled eggs, flaky pastries and St Ali coffee. In the homewares and pantry sections? Linen napery, Maison Balzac glassware, and condiments galore. Take away, or perch in the leafy courtyard out the back. (And don’t skip retro-style Fox’s Store nearby for a milkshake or spider.)
David Matthews is a food writer and editor, and co-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025.
