“It’s the lounge room of Lorne, someone said.”

That’s game-changing Melbourne chef Jo Barrett on the location of her new restaurant, Little Picket, which opens this Saturday in the locally loved Lorne Bowls Club on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. (Word spreads fast, so opening night is already booked out.)

Barrett has one hell of a CV. From taking the Yarra Valley’s Oakridge Wines to new heights, to living and working in a tiny home and urban farm at Melbourne’s zero-waste Future Food System in Fed Square – both alongside fellow chef Matt Stone – to a stint on Tassie’s “untouched paradise”, Flinders Island, she’s a culinary superstar. And she’s put down roots in Lorne.

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“My idea of what a restaurant is has changed a lot,” she tells Broadsheet. “I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to open a restaurant, especially after Future Food System. How?” She’s talking about the singularity of the self-sustaining initiative, spearheaded by eco-pioneer Joost Bakker. She and Stone lived on on-site for six months in 2021, surviving only on produce they grew.

But what ultimately lured Barrett to Lorne was the opportunity to set up a four-acre market garden – which has always been a dream of hers – on a mate’s nearby property. It’s early days (and they’re still chilly), so it’s not yielding much more than leafy greens just yet, but “I can’t imagine having a restaurant without growing my own produce”.

The menu at Little Picket, smack bang in the middle of the seaside town, will revolve around what she can grow and what she can gather from the community garden across the road. Plus, what locals have a surplus of: “Someone dropped off a ton of lemons!”

There’ll be a raft of small plates for bowling-adjacent snacking: homemade dim sims – filled with locally farmed pork and locally grown cabbage – and drizzled with house chilli oil; handmade cheeses; Picket pickles; and the team’s own salami (eventually).
Larger dishes might include rustic bouillabaisse with Portarlington mussels or Yan Yan Gurt West Farm lamb from the nearby Deans Marsh, and some stellar vegetarian options.

And for dessert? There’ll be a by-the-slice buffet with what Barrett describes as “very clubby” sweets – like sponge cakes, lemon tarts and ginger puddings.

“No one’s been doing food here for the past two years,” says Barrett, who only took over the lease last month. So, it’s been a race to get it up and running in only a few weeks.

It was a group effort, and community gets a capital “C” here. Club members helped Barrett and the team – including chef Louise Daily and craft-beer expert David Osgood – freshen up the space. “We literally had a working bee one day … 20 or 30 of them really dug deep to make it look really great.” They’ve also redone the namesake picket fence and bar and added new tables, made from reclaimed ’40s timber from the Otways.

But it hasn’t lost its clubhouse feel. “There’s still memorabilia all over the walls and big windows with old-school decals, and it’s a beautiful white weatherboard building.” While the club has been around since 1956, the current clubhouse was built in 2003.

“I always knew it was special here, but this is exactly what I see a restaurant being – a community space,” Barrett adds. “We didn’t really know anyone at the start, but with lots of people coming and going it feels like we already know the whole community.”

Little Picket opens this Saturday August 20.

Little Picket
35 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne

Hours:
Thu 3pm–late (bar only)
Fri to Sat 12pm–late

@littlepicket_lorne