The ultimate foodie road trip; my favourite Australian restaurant; and a kebab

Even the people who organised this trip, from Visit Victoria, were jealous. Like, how can you pack so much great dining into just a few days? How can you visit all these icons, both old-school and new, in less than a week?

Why is one person getting to do all this great stuff?

I can’t answer the last question. The first two, however, are with a lot of planning and some good luck.

So here’s my little snapshot of the dining scene in Victoria, both in Melbourne and in the towns within a few hours’ drive, after a visit last week. I tried to highlight some of the state’s classic dining options on this trip, rather than go for the new and the trendy, and I’m pleased to say that those stalwarts are holding up incredibly well.

If you live in Victoria, or you’re visiting soon, these are some (mostly) great places to eat.

Flower Drum, Melbourne

It was fascinating to me to see the reaction when I posted photos of Flower Drum on my Instagram. So many people commented to tell me: this place is special to my family. We always go here.

And it really is a special place, a Melbourne institution for more than 50 years, where very little changes between visits: the décor is the same, the wait staff are the same, the food is pretty similar. But Flower Drum does what it does very, very well. The steamed abalone with sesame noodles was probably the dish of the night, though the Peking duck pancakes are an icon for a reason.

Footscray tour

I actually kicked off my Victorian odyssey with a walking tour of Footscray with Intrepid Travel. I’ve always liked this area of Melbourne, despite all the scary news stories. We ate at a heap of different places on this tour: Nhu Ngoc in Footscray Market for excellent banh mi; Say Cheese, a new sandwich shop, for a cracking pork-and-pickle toastie; Konjo Café for traditional Ethiopian coffee; and T. Cavallaro & Sons for cannoli.

The scene in Footscray is diverse and exciting, from places that have been open 70 years to some that just kicked off a few weeks ago. Get down there and check it out.

Cote Basque, Melbourne

Andrew McConnell knows a thing or two about running a restaurant in Melbourne: he’s the chef behind Cumulus Inc, Supernormal, Gimlet, Bar Miette, and now Cote Basque, a pan-European grill house in the building that previously housed Italian favourite Becco for 28 years.

I’m always a little sceptical of any place calling itself Basque in Australia: it’s usually just Spanish cuisine, with a few Gildas thrown in to justify the name. I’m happy to report, however, that McConnell gets it. The menu here is littered with Basque favourites, but it also embraces the Basque philosophy of taking good ingredients and treating them with care, allowing them to be the star.

Don’t miss the “Fisherman’s Soup”, which is highly reminiscent of Casa Camara, one of my favourite Basque Country restaurants, and anything from the grill.  

Florentino, Melbourne

Here’s another Melbourne institution, though one that is going through some big changes. Florentino has been around almost 100 years, and was previously in the hands of Guy Grossi – that is, until allegations surfaced that he had groped female journalists, and the chef divested himself of all his restaurants. In his places comes Rebecca Yazbek and Sydney-based Edition Hospitality, who have given Florentino a spruce up, though the basic drive of the restaurant remains the same.

The venue is split into three: the casual Cellar Bar, the slightly fancier Café Florentino, and then the fine-dining Florentino Dining Room. I was lucky to dine at the latter, and the room is stunning, there’s nothing else like it in Australia. (According to Yazbek, there used to be rotary-dial phones on the walls beside all the tables for two so that dining politicians could keep in touch with their PAs.)

The food here is beautiful, though I felt that most dishes still need a bit of work – some under-seasoned, some with bold citrusy flavours dominating the likes of bluefin tuna crudo, which should really be allowed to shine. I got the feeling the kitchen needs a bit more time.

Kuzu Izakaya, Woodend

Here’s the thing with Victoria: there’s so much good eating outside the big city. Take Woodend for example, a town of only 7000 people, and yet it has multiple excellent places to eat, including Kuzu.

Set in a small house a little back from the street, surrounded by gardens, Kuzu does pretty classic Japanese food with a slight Australian twist (oyster shooters with tobiko and green apple, for example). Probably the highlight for me was the excellent service, as well as the classic take on beef tataki; the lowlight was the knowledge that we have nothing like this in my home town, which is far bigger.  

Bendigo Four Hats Tour

Here’s a great idea for visitors to Bendigo hoping to sample a lot of good food in a small amount of time: the Four Hats Progressive Dinner, a once-a-month tour that takes diners for four courses in four different restaurants, each of which have been awarded a hat by the Australian Good Food Guide (which is not to be confused with The Age Good Food, whose hats are far more difficult to win).

On the night I was there we visited Alium Dining for appetisers, Terrae for entrees, The Woodhouse for mains, and Le Foyer for dessert. I was really impressed with each restaurant, though for me the standout was Woodhouse, which is turning out some outstanding steaks, great produce cooked with skill.

Shedshaker Brewing Company, Castlemaine

Always time to fit in a quick brewery visit! Everyone I told that I was going to Shedshaker said something along the lines of: awesome. You’ll love it. And I really did. The beer here is excellent – a schooner of Golden Ale went down a treat on an unusually hot day – and the crowd is friendly.

I was told to order the crispy tofu as a starter, which I probably wouldn’t do again (caramel and pistachios have no place on a tofu entrée in my humble opinion) but the pizzas are solid.

Chauncy, Heathcote

Ahhhh Chauncy. This might just be my favourite restaurant in Australia. In fact, it has to be. Set in an old surveyor’s headquarters in downtown Heathcote, Chauncy is everything I love in a restaurant: beautiful, thoughtful food, seasonal and local though with French flair; incredible wine, poured generously without you even having to ask; long, long lunches with no other bookings and nowhere else to be; the most wonderful people behind the whole thing.

Chauncy is the work of Tess Murray and Louis Naepels; she runs front-of-house, pouring wines and running plates; he works the kitchen, banging pans and also running plates. This is such a small operation, with only about 14 diners a day, four days a week, and Tess and Louis do almost everything themselves, including tending the on-site gardens. It’s a labour of love, and it shows.

Highlight of the meal? Foraged morels stuffed with chicken liver parfait, in a nettle sauce, paired with Mosel riesling. Everything that’s good about Chauncy.

Heathcote Pizza & Kebabs

Hot tip: if it gets past 9pm in Heathcote and you suddenly realise you’re a bit boozy and could use some dinner, you only have one option, and that’s the fairly sketchy looking Heathcote Pizza & Kebabs, which is open until 10pm. I opted for the mixed lamb and chicken kebab, and you know what? It was OK.

Prato, Kyneton

This was a quick lunch on the way back to Melbourne Airport, but damn, how nice is Kyneton? Just another Victorian country town filled with art dealers and antique shops and independent grocers and restaurants like Prato.

This is a mostly Greek diner with an Italian flourish, which can been seen in the list of “pinsas” – thin-based pizzas – and the likes of crostini with vinegar-cured anchovies and peppers. Lovely little place that I would really like to go back to and give it more time.

WHERE WE STAYED

Jess and I also had the chance to sample a few accommodation options in Victoria, but the highlight was probably the new retreats at Mount Monument Winery near Romsey. This place is owned by Nonda Katsalidis, the architect who designed Mona in Hobart, so you expect big things from his hillside retreats, and they mostly deliver.

We stayed in Elektra, a two-bedder with views of the Macedon Ranges, where kangaroos hop by and rosellas fly overhead and you can hang out in the hot tub with a cocktail and watch the sunset. And then retire inside to sit in front of the fire and eat cheese.

The only downside is the bedrooms, which are strangely tiny, to the point where you can’t fit two people between the bed and the wall (you have to wait for one to clear the way to get through) and the bathroom doorway is partially blocked by the bedroom door. Bizarre that one of Australia’s leading architects, with complete carte blanche on design and space, conceived this.

WHAT I’M LOVING THIS WEEK

• Less than two months to go before Western Sydney International Airport opens, which is exciting, even if the “international” offering is still looking a little thin.
• Qantas is doubling its direct flights between Brisbane and Palau (taking it to twice weekly) from December to March, a welcome addition for a truly great destination.
• Intrepid Travel is going old-school and releasing a series of destination guidebooks: it’s just added Greece and New Zealand, guides designed for intrepid travellers keen to get off the beaten path (and lower their impact).

WHAT I’M NOT LOVING

• Qantas ground staff have voted in favour of industrial action, including strikes that could affect school holiday travellers who are using QantasLink services. This is over negotiations for a new enterprise agreement.
• Interesting to see big travel and food influencers like Mark Weins posting gushing videos from Afghanistan, in restaurants where women are not allowed to dine without a male chaperone (or they’re banned entirely). If this was race-based segregation, instead of gender, people like Weins would surely take a principled stand. But if it’s women it just gets normalised without even a mention.