Avani Wines was always supposed to have a restaurant. But it wasn’t until two years ago, when Retu Kaskana joined the business that her mother (winemaker Shashi Singh) and father (former chef Devendra Singh) founded in 1998, that a food offering really started to get off the ground.

It started with a series of chef pop-ups with talent including Tom Sarafian, Mischa Tropp, and couple Saavni Krishnan and Sriram Aditya of Saadi. Last month, Avani launched a permanent food offering, Cellar Kitchen.

Kaskana tapped family friend and chef Deepak Mishra, currently the director of food, beverage and culinary operations for Pan Pacific Melbourne, to develop an Indian-inspired menu that works to bring out the flavours in Shashi’s wines.

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“People are just so surprised,” Kaskana says when people are told the winery restaurant serves Indian food. “They’re like, ‘no, it should be a beer with Indian food, right?’ So we’re retraining.”

The succinct à la carte menu has six snacks including burrata chaat – a “sweet, sour, spicy flavour bomb” – and Goan choris pao, a bun similar to brioche filled with two chutneys, pickled onion and chorizo, cooked in a tomato base. The biggest plates are a buffalo paneer salad and a rich Lucknowi lamb shoulder curry that nods to Devendra’s home city.

“We're showing how well Indian food can pair with our wine. That was one of the things we wanted to teach people,” says Kaskana.

The restaurant, formerly in the space where the team produced wines, is in a mudbrick building with large glass windows that overlook the vineyard. Visitors can grab a quick snack with a wine before heading off, or relax with a bottle and keep the dishes coming for a leisurely lunch.

While typically only open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the restaurant will open every day from 11am to 5pm from Thursday December 26 until Sunday January 5.

Avani Wines Cellar Kitchen
98 Stanleys Road, Red Hill South
0435 997 007

Hours:
Fri to Sun 11am–5pm

www.avanisyrah.com.au