“Do you want to have dessert in the garden?” Do I ever.
Long lunching at Chauncy, a French-leaning fine diner in the central Victorian wine town of Heathcote, leaves you wanting for nothing. But the unexpected post-main-course offer to stretch your legs, park yourself in the sun of the lush kitchen garden and dive into dessert and digestifs en plein air takes the experience to new heights.
Chauncy opened quietly but confidently in late 2021, quickly gaining acclaim. But in the two years since, it’s fine-tuned itself into one of the state’s best new regional dining experiences. Here are four reasons to fast-track it to the top of your hit list.
The dream team
Food and wine are the yin and yang of Louis Naepels and Tess Murray, the couple behind Chauncy. And these two have chops.
Chef Naepels is a French native who grew up in Paris, cutting his teeth in Michelin-starred restaurants before moving to Melbourne and working his way up to head chef at Florentino. It was there he met a wine-obsessed (but by her own admission “out of [her] depth”) junior sommelier, Murray, who went on to become head somm at Andrew McConnell’s Supernormal under the guidance of Trader House’s dynamo beverage director Leanne Altmann.
This meeting led to Naepels and Murray running a bistro in the French Basque country. But it was a pop-up series on the Bellarine Peninsula that helped crystallise the Chauncy concept, with the pair working directly with growers on menus du jour, or “of the day”.
The menu du jour allure
While the four-course set menu isn’t reinvented daily, it does ebb and flow with what Naepels finds at the Castlemaine Farmers Market and what Murray’s garden yields. “We’ve grown up to 80 per cent of a menu’s produce before,” Murray tells Broadsheet. Currently, homegrown romanesco and pretty-in-purple violetta cauliflower are served blanched but still bitey on a daub of bagna cauda (garlicky anchovy dipping sauce). It’s a zinger.
Naepels’s dishes are broadly European but mostly French; often vibrantly coloured, like the vichyssoise sauce dotted with Portarlington mussels, gloriously green parsley oil and slivers of radish; and with an understated elegance that might catch you off guard – has chou farci, aka stuffed cabbage, ever been so sexy? Similarly appealing are the amuse-bouche Comte gougeres, perfectly pillowy cheese puffs. They’re good friends of fizz, and both come lightning-fast after you arrive.
But despite the set menu, there are some choices to make. “We’ve added layers to the experience,” says Murray. (Rest assured, though, that the four “base” courses can stand alone.) Supplements could include generous shavings of Oakhill truffles, a lobster-swimming-in-bisque course, or more wine pairings from Murray’s “forever-improving” list. And dessert is optional (but shouldn’t be). “There’s always something creamy, something chocolatey and something fruity,” says Murray: perhaps crème brûlée, chocolate mousse gone god-tier elevated with olive oil and salt, and tarte tartin.
The benchmark-setting service
The menu leaves room for you to choose your own adventure, and it’s one your front-of-house friends are along for. Admittedly, truly good service never feels cookie-cutter, but Chauncy’s secret weapon is that its team are true chameleons.
It’s entrancing to watch your waiter switch from tongue-in-cheek cocktail banter with you, to a tender backrub with a regular, to a French wine deep dive with a table of connoisseurs – all within the space of five minutes, and all without missing a beat. Murray puts it best: “It’s about meeting people where they’re at ... and with kindness”.
The French countryside feel
“I wanted it to be like an oasis,” says Murray.
At a glance, you mightn’t make that connection. Chauncy is set in a stately sandstone building – just off Heathcote’s quaint main drag – that’s lived a number of lives since it was built in 1854 (surveyor’s office, doctor’s studio and private residence, to name a few).
But once you’ve pulled into the car park, taken in the garden that borders it and been warmly welcomed through the side entrance, it all starts to make sense.
Gazing past the whisky-bottle-topped marble mantelpiece out the window in the main dining room, there’s an air of the French countryside. And if you squint as fellow diners spill outside to play petanque and sip pastis, that daydream feels even less far-fetched.
Chauncy
178 High Street, Heathcote
(03) 4432 7951
Hours:
Mon 12.30pm–4.30pm
Tue to Thu closed
Fri to Sun 12.30pm–4.30pm
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