MasterChef judge and Ducks co-owner Andy Allen has confirmed a restaurant, bakery and produce store will operate on farmland run by billionaire Annie Cannon-Brookes.
Three Blue Ducks will transplant its successful Byron Bay “farm” formula to the Southern Highlands, inking a monster deal to open multiple venues on a working farm near Bowral linked to one of the richest people in the country.
MasterChef judge and Three Blue Ducks co-owner Andy Allen confirmed a bakery and separate eat-in and takeaway produce store would open late this year, followed by an upmarket restaurant in early 2026.
The farm-to-plate agritourism project has been brewing for months. The Herald caught whiff of a Southern Highlands deal when the Ducks crew was spotted moving around Bowral and at a nearby farm in Burradoo run by billionaire Annie Cannon-Brookes.
Ranked 12th on the 2025 Australian Financial Review Rich List, Cannon-Brookes has a sizeable land holding in the area and philanthropic food intent. In June, the AFR revealed she had made a multimillion-dollar contribution to Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Foundation. A purpose-built educational kitchen garden, run with the foundation, will operate on the same Burradoo property as the new Three Blue Ducks venues.
The deal is one of Cannon-Brookes’ first major philanthropic moves since her separation from Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of software giant Atlassian.
The venues will work directly with farmers onsite, and there will be an emphasis on ethically grown produce and sustainability.
The Burradoo farm is already producing beets, turnips and carrots. Allen said the aim was to expand the fruit and vegetable program and raise all the protein onsite for the produce store and restaurant. Pigs and cattle are already grazing on the farm, while lamb will be added in the new year. About 800 chickens are being introduced for eggs, with another 450 for meat.
Various properties on the farm will be repurposed. A shed is being renovated as a produce store. Visitors will be able to grab an affordable meal at one of its 60 seats, while a cottage on the property has loftier ambitions.
“This is the one where we can really show what we can do,” Allen said of the incoming upmarket restaurant. While proud of the “bloody tasty” food they already produce, Allen said the restaurant would put the Ducks back on the culinary map.
“It will still have that rustic charm about it,” Allen said. But part of the decision to open a signature restaurant is driven by the restaurant experience already in place with the Three Blue Ducks team. Co-owner Darren Robertson, for instance, was once head chef at now-closed Sydney fine-diner Tetsuya’s. “Daz has that pedigree. I’ve been trying to prise it [the restaurant] out of him for years,” Allen said.
Robertson said the 50-seat restaurant would have a “country, cottagey vibe”. The name is yet to be decided: “It will be Three Blue Ducks Burradoo, Three Blue Ducks Southern Highlands. Something like that.”
As for the entire project, don’t expect it to follow the Byron moniker. “It won’t be called The Farm,” Robertson said.
The Southern Highlands lost the upmarket Biota restaurant during the pandemic, but Robertson is confident the area’s demographic and visitor numbers of more than 1 million a year will support a serious restaurant.
There are some notable restaurants in the area, including Eschalot in Berrima and the chef’s-hatted Paste Australia in Mittagong, but high-profile restaurant launches have been few and far between in recent years.
“There’s still room for a bit of growth here,” Robertson said.
The bakery will turn out sourdough bread, and visitors to the produce store will be able to tuck into simple dishes such as cured meats or a “pork chop and salad”. Robertson said locals would also be able to grab essentials to take away.
The success of the Ducks’ farm concept at Byron Bay had led to many approaches to recreate it elsewhere, Robertson said. Few, if any, of the projects got off the launchpad. In this case, it took something special to tempt the team, with the commitment of a fully integrated working farm and its location reeling them in.
Allen recently visited Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York state, and was impressed by the way the farm restaurant had responded to different challenges since it opened in 2004.
There won’t be any grand announcements about a particular cuisine at the Three Blue Ducks restaurant, which will be a collaborative effort shared by the team. “We’ve never had a [single] cuisine – it will be that Three Blue Ducks style,” Allen said. “The produce will tell us where we’ll go.”
The celebrity chef believes all the key ingredients to succeed are in place. “The only reason it won’t do well is if we don’t do it well,” he said.
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