“We believe there should be a conscious connection between the one who eats the food and the source of that sustenance. Working with the local indigenous Gunditjmara Kirrae Wurrung-Bundjalung people has helped us shape dishes around foraged herbs and native plants their people have been using for hundreds of years.”

Flinders Island wallaby tartare with caper emulsion, crispy quail egg, and rye; confit shiitake mushroom with eggplant, Main Ridge tomatoes, goat’s curd, shallots, and butter pine nuts; and grass whiting with Pommes Anna, grenobloise, garlic purée, and sea parsley.

Geese and sheep roam the grounds of Paringa Estate winery, setting the scene for this restaurant’s relaxed, thoroughly regional approach. The Mornington Peninsula’s ever-growing status as Melbourne’s luxe larder is easy to understand from a table in the arching timber-ceilinged dining room overlooking cascading rows of vines, as Chef Adam Beckett dishes a taste of the terroir in lockstep with organic and ethical principles. Often overlooked fish species such as grass whiting go from zero to hero with the additions of a classic Pommes Anna and foraged sea succulents. In autumn, foraged wild mushrooms – saffron caps, pine mushrooms, and slippery jacks – will pop up, while local growers Benton Rise, L'Herbier, and “retired couple Harry and Mary” deliver fresh produce that inspires the beautiful, vibrant dishes.

“Nature’s ebb and flow is expressed in the kitchen.”

Gourmet Traveller