mornington peninsula
2024
ALL THINGS DELICIOUS ON THE MORNINGTON PENINSULA
PEBBLES AT PEPPERS MOONAH LINKS RESORT P: 118
EAT.DRINK . . .
enjoy
LANCEMORE LINDENDERRY RED HILL P: 152
Your passport to our Peninsula paradise
Welcome to the sixth edition of Eat.Drink Mornington Peninsula, the food and wine-lovers’ guide to one of the most beautiful parts of the world. This is an unrivalled collection of the best places to eat and drink on the Mornington Peninsula and across Greater Frankston. It is the go-to publication covering every locale you need to know about, from the best cafes for your daily cup of coffee to an exhaustive selection of wonderful dining establishments. It includes options for everyday lunches and dinners and award-winning restaurants. Written by Mornington Peninsula locals for locals and visitors alike, this is a publication that should sit on top of every food-lover’s coffee table. This year there is a huge focus on local produce and farmgates, and we have two maps to help you navigate your way: the Wine Touring Map and the Farmgate and Produce Map. It's your food and beverage passport to the Mornington Peninsula. You may be familiar with some of the names in here; others will be new. Explore the Peninsula using this book to revisit old favourites, find new ones and create new experiences. Take your time, enjoy the company of the people you’re dining with, have fun with the staff and enjoy this truly beautiful part of the world where the focus is on local. Follow and tag us on social media @eatdrinkmornpen as we keep you updated on all things eat and drink across this amazing area. From earth to sea, there is abundance for all to share. www.eatdrinkmp.com.au
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From the producers to the consumers, this ones’ for you
I grew up in this part of the world. Beautiful country. Beautiful and wonderfully productive country. Country that has fed locals for thousands of years and supported intensive horticulture for well over a century. There’s a reason why the food grown down here is so good. The secret is in the ground beneath your feet and above you in the sky.
The earth you are standing on is perfect for growing food. Across large swathes of the Mornington Peninsula is soil that is deep reddish brown and profoundly fertile. It runs under places like Red Hill and Main Ridge and grows some of the best stone fruit and apples in the country. Here, cool winters help develop and form the cherry, pear and apple flowers and long summer days help ripen the fruit. Along the coast, down towards Bass Strait and in belts near Frankston the soil is thinner but free-draining. Good farmers know how to work with this soil to grow great crops of carrots, potatoes and leafy greens. Around Flinders, on
the gently undulating folds of land, grows rich pasture that has fed countless herds of cattle. But not even the best farmer on Earth can grow a blade of grass without water. When it rains on the Peninsula, it rains hard. The average rainfall for some parts of the Peninsula is almost a metre. Melbourne has about two-thirds of that rainfall. Perched between the bays and jutting out into Bass Strait, the Peninsula has its own microclimate that is warmer in winter and cooler in summer than metro Melbourne. And when clouds come in on those prevailing westerlies, laden with water evaporated from the Southern Ocean, they hit Arthurs Seat. That great mound of granite pushes those clouds up where the air is cooler. The clouds then drop their rain on Red Hill, Main Ridge and Shoreham. Our great soil and reliable rainfall makes this region one of the best parts of the country to grow food. It is also one of the best parts of the world to enjoy food. And wine. With the renaissance of the Mornington Peninsula wine industry in the 1970s and ‘80s came a new wave of places to eat. Back in the 1980s when I was growing up there wasn’t a lot of choice of places to dine out. A counter meal at the Flinders Pub where a seafood basket, deep-fried from imported frozen
PT. LEO ESTATE
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eatdrinkmornpen
seafood, was a rare highlight. We owned the Merricks General Store at the time. I worked in the kitchen and watched as hungry day-trippers would devour anything fresh, homemade and local we put in front of them. We offered something different. Real food that tasted great. Freshly baked pies with big chunks of real steak in a thick gravy redolent of nutmeg and bay, a nod to Nana Cornish’s recipe. Even as a teenager I could see that people were ravenous for real food experiences. Fertile ground for the restaurants that sprung up alongside wineries. There was the groundbreaking La Baracca at T’Gallant where Kevin McCarthy and Kathleen Quealy served
pizza in an old shed and the waitresses would burst into song. People like the McIntyre family, who built a great rammed concrete structure in their Moorooduc Estate vineyard and started serving provincial French food alongside their Burgundy-influenced cool-climate wines. The Mitchell family at Montalto in Red Hill reinvested in their beautiful vineyard looking into the cleft of a steep valley. They groomed the vineyards, planted sculpture and took the incredibly progressive step of hiring a full-time vegetable gardener to grow crops to feed the kitchen. Today each meal starts with an offering from the garden, via the kitchen, of food that was connected to a plant only minutes before you crunched into it. Peas in spring, tomatoes in
summer, pumpkin in autumn and brassicas in winter. On a windswept hill in a bald sheep paddock once owned by spinster sisters, the Gandel family built a temple to gastronomy and surrounded it with vines and sculpture. Point Leo Estate’s Laura Restaurant is now recognised as one of the country’s best. In the past decade the rate of high-end restaurants opening has gone through the roof, with top chefs such as Scott Pickett and George Calombaris opening the doors to new dining rooms. Those high-end dining venues have been joined by a raft of everyday bistros, restaurants, cafes and eateries that dot every town, village and hamlet. Comfortable and delicious places like Bistro Elba in Sorrento, where the team celebrate local seafood and produce in a constantly changing seasonal menu. Neighbourhood dining rooms that are worth driving for like Many Little in Red Hill, where a Sri Lankan-born chef celebrates the food of his home country in a modern dining room in a 1980s shopping centre overlooking a cherry orchard. Places that serve exceptional coffee like Pier Street kitchen in Dromana, whose corn and broccoli fritters are so delicious you would never believe they were good for you. Or Zarb & Ru in Rosebud where every day starts with a toasted jaffle and a latte. They are joined by the countless people who through sheer hard work and endless imagination produce some extraordinary food for our everyday home kitchens. They are the bakers, the chocolatiers, the preservers, meat smokers and the tireless business people, mostly sole traders or families, who put truly delicious things in jars, packets and boxes. This edition of Eat.Drink Mornington Peninsula is a dedication to all those people who live among us and work so hard to put food on our tables, put food in front of us, or put food and drink into jars, boxes and bottles for us to enjoy and others around the world to get a taste of this beautiful part of the world. And to all of you who eat and drink the fruits of their labour. Please enjoy this edition for yourself or give it to a friend who enjoys their food and drink as much as you do. Enjoy. Cheers RICHARD CORNISH Richard Cornish is a freelance food writer filing regular food news stories for newspapers and magazines across Australia, including Eat.Drink Mornington Peninsula and each month in Mornington Peninsula Magazine. www.richardcornish.com.au
www.eatdrinkmp.com.au
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SECTIONS our team
sections
Frankston and surrounds
22-41
Mount Eliza, Mornington, Mount Martha, Somerville, Tuerong and Moorooduc
46-79
PHOTOGRAPHER Amber, Naturalight Photography
Safety Beach, Dromana, McCrae, Rosebud, Boneo, Capel Sound and Tootgarook
84-107
Rye, St Andrews, Blairgowrie, Sorrento and Portsea
112-119
WRITERS Richard Cornish, Amy Campion, Sarah Halfpenny, Max Allen, Raquel Neofit, Danielle Davey and Jacqui B
Peninsula’s Finest - Peninsula Made
122-125
Flinders, Somers, Balnarring, Bittern, Hastings and Tyabb
134-143
Main Ridge, Red Hill, Arthurs Seat, Merricks, Shoreham and Point Leo
146-161
PUBLISHER/DESIGNER Lisa Walton
CLIENT RELATIONS Molly Mitchell, Anna Georgiou, Belinda Timmerman DISTRIBUTION Archie Mitchell WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Sinead Fay, Amber Marie ALL ENQUIRIES 9708 8222
maps
Mornington Peninsula Produce Farmgate Map
130
Mornington Peninsula Wine Touring Map
162
directories Markets
170-171
Directory
172-178
JOIN OUR TRIBE. FOLLOW & TAG eatdrinkmornpen
Published by Morn Pen Mag Pty Ltd ABN 55 621 041 512 14/1140 Nepean Highway, Mornington Victoria 3931 Phone 9708 8222 Out every November Deadline late September
acknowledgement
The team at Morn Pen Mag Pty Ltd acknowledges and pays respect to the Bunurong people, Elders, past and present and emerging, the traditional custodians of these lands and waters where produce in this book is grown and consumed.
front cover
Photography: Amber, Naturalight Photography @itsnaturalight From 400 Gradi, 25 Main St, Mornington see page 67, Main Dish: Linguine Allo Scoglio: Prawns, Mussels, Vongole, Sugo al Pomodoro, Chilli, Parsley, Garlic, White Wine, Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Entree:, Cime Di Rapa: Pan Tossed Wild Broccoletti, Chilli, Garlic, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lemon. Drink: Aperol Spritz.
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THE CONTINENTAL SORRENTO P: 114
photography Once again it has been a delight to include Amber from Naturalight Photography as head photographer in this edition of Eat.Drink. Having established her studio in 1997, Amber is well known on the Peninsula for her natural and unique style of capture that really brings her subjects to life. “I’ve lived on the Peninsula my whole life and it is always exciting to discover places I haven’t visited and meet people off the beaten track,” Amber says. “The beach and hinterland are picturesque, but it’s what goes on inside that had me excited. Seeing the wineries in action, meeting growers and the working animals of dairies and truffle fields is the absolute best. We are truly spoilt for choice on the Mornington Peninsula and it’s a blessing to call it home.” www.naturalightphotography.com.au
eatdrinkmornpen
CONTENTS
THE SOMERS GENERAL P. 137
This one’s for you by Richard Cornish
4
Connection to Country resonates with Peninsula wine producers by Max Allen
8
FROM SEA Get by with a little kelp
10
THE SEASONS Includes four recipes by Diego Cossio
12
FROM EARTH Heirloom tomatoes run rings around the rest
18
FROM THE DARK Fabulous local fungi
20
FROM BEAN Doing good business with good people
42
FROM VAT Embracing the spirit of change for a better world
44
PENINSULA MADE Produce paradise for master chefs and home cooks
80
The Kindness Echoes - Baking with kindness
82
FROM AIR Waste not, want not
108
FROM TREE Louise is determined to not waste a tradition
110
FROM POT Preserving the flavours of the past
120
FROM PADDOCK Small producers having a big impact.
126
FROM FIELD Bring the family for a cracking day out
128
Melissa Jackson - Where the milliner hangs her hat
132
Phillippa’s Flinders and beyond
144
FROM OVEN Alex’s tarts are a work of Arc
164
FROM SMOKE Stone provides a solid base for thriving business
166
Switch to reusables
168
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WILDGRAIN MORNINGTON P. 76
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