Two-hatted Barragunda Dining is a long-lunch destination, but even more magic happens outside the restaurant.
When you snake down the long, tree-lined gravel road that ends at Barragunda – the Mornington Peninsula’s latest destination diner, open since February – you are afforded an immediate sense of scale.
But what you see is the tip of the iceberg. Just another restaurant, this is not.
At The Age Good Food Guide 2026 Awards on Monday night, Barragunda took out Victoria’s inaugural Trailblazer Award, which The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide introduced last year. It recognises a venue, person or organisation bringing forward-thinking and entrepreneurial energy to the hospitality industry, bolstered by warmth and integrity.
In accepting the award, Barragunda Dining executive chef Simone Watts acknowledged her peers based on the Peninsula.
“There are so many Mornington Peninsula people nominated tonight, and that’s a real testament to how lucky we are to live in such a produce-rich region.”
Most obviously, the two-hatted Barragunda is a place for long lunching. The cooking is so exceptional that Watts and pastry chef Laura Skvor were finalists in the Guide’s chef of the year and young chef of the year categories, respectively. In her review earlier this year, The Age’s chief restaurant critic Besha Rodell praised the restaurant’s service as “that wonderful, oh-so-Australian combination of passion, warmth and personality”.
A pitched-roofed, glass-walled pavilion encases the restaurant, but even more magic happens outside, on the surrounding 1000 acres of the Cape Schanck property.
Most ingredients that land on your plate are sourced from the site’s regenerative farm, where Watts lives so she can monitor the harvests. Her menus rarely repeat themselves, and find wonder in what other chefs may consider waste, from sunflower stems to burnt onion skins. Anything that can be composted is, while plastic is avoided where possible.
“On a regional level and when you’ve got a farm attached to your restaurant … there are so many boots on the ground that really make it happen,” said Watts on Monday.
There’s a community element to the enterprise, too. It’s farm to table and beyond, using a co-op model seldom seen in these upper reaches of dining. Some vegetables (plus seedlings and native plants) are available to buy through an online store, while small local businesses have the opportunity to share the kitchen when it’s not in service.
All of this is a result of a monumental commitment – and investment – by philanthropist Hayley Morris, whose family owns the property, as well as pubs such as the Portsea Hotel.
Watts described Morris as being the driving force “behind Barragunda’s profits not going into profit but into food systems change, [following] a different thought process to the way we normally do things”.
Alongside Watts, Morris has spent years building the kind of food system that could revolutionise regional dining. It’s smart, it’s resource-sharing and it spreads the love throughout the local community. All profits from the restaurant go towards the family’s foundation to support regenerative agriculture projects in a virtuous cycle.
No restaurant opening in the past decade has swung for the bleachers quite like Barragunda. Here’s hoping it’s a sign of more holistic, high-ambition hospitality to come.
The Good Food app is the home of the 2026 edition of The Age Good Food Guide, with more than 500 reviews. The app is free for premium subscribers of The Age and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app here.
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