Wickens at the Royal Mail Hotel

“The Royal Mail Hotel is home to Australia’s largest working restaurant kitchen garden which grows 100 per cent​ of the garden produce showcased on the menu, while our neighbouring farm supplies beef and lamb.”

Wattleseed onion bhaji; Cylindra beetroot with marrow, horseradish, and wasabi rocket; and Royal Mail lamb with kohlrabi, sunflower, and late summer vegetables.

More than a decade in the making, the Royal Mail Hotel’s grand vision of pastoral dining has been brought to fruition with the immersive new restaurant – made with local timbers, stone and even wool, it’s the region distilled into constructed form. And it comes complete with stunning views of the Grampians, a jaw-dropping 28,000-strong wine cellar, and Robin Wickens in the kitchen.

The farm-like kitchen gardens are the engine room of his five and eight-course menus. With around eighteen varieties of heirloom tomatoes to hand, Wickens gets playful, sending out caramelized green tomatoes, with all the right tart and sweet notes, on brioche with peppery nasturtium petal ice-cream. The indigenous herb blue devil, a favourite of the farm’s sheep, is teamed symbiotically with lamb tongue, while aged beef makes for a deeply rich tartare served on puffed beef tendon with a wink of coal oil.

“Uninterrupted views of the Grampians, tabletops of sandstone quarried nearby, and the option to dine kitchen-side – the Royal Mail Hotel’s new restaurant, Wickens, is here and it’s out to impress.”

Gourmet Traveller