“Muse aims to support and work alongside large and small local producers that show great pride and love for what they do, delivering refined and creative food and a genuinely welcoming dining experience.”

Large Wollombi beetroot cooked in house-made Semillon verjuice with a smoked Wagyu-fat dressing, Branxton pecans from the neighbour’s orchard, finished at the table with an individual goat’s curd in whey.

Troy Rhoades-Brown lives on a six-acre Hunter Valley property with two kids, twenty chickens, two pigs, a citrus orchard, nut trees and a large vegetable garden that also supplies the restaurant. To say he cares about seasonality and local produce is an understatement. Milk comes from Udder Farm’s Glen Haines, who bottles each drop himself and personally delivers to Muse. Every summer, Troy collects thousands of cobs of sweetcorn from seventy-fiveyear-old John Wright, dries it, shucks and stores it to mill for their Hunter Valley polenta.

he Japanese-inflected menu stars ethically farmed native Australian Murray cod from Murray Gold (where even the tank water is recycled to water plantations) and utilizes wholecarcass meats so nothing gets wasted. The kitchen’s veggie trimmings are fed to their pigs, who consequently fertilise the gardens, completing the cycle of sustainability rather nicely.

“While the chef’s devotion to simple, seasonal produce is evident, each dish is an eye-opening display of the finest technique.” goodfood.com.au