Five To Try: Regional Victorian Restaurants Worth the Drive

As someone who’s lucky enough in my role at Broadsheet to eat all over town, I know that some of Victoria’s best restaurants are outside Melbourne. And I’m willing to travel for food.

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Once your car’s sorted, it’s time to plug your destination into your map and hit the road. Here are five spots outside of Melbourne worth visiting for a memorable meal.

Tedesca Osteria is in a gorgeous early-20th-century weatherboard house on the Mornington Peninsula, and it’s by former Gertrude Street Enoteca chef Brigitte Hafner. Long lunches are the thing at this idyllic restaurant, and the set menu is built around produce from the restaurant’s biodynamic farm.

Lunch always starts with meze. “There’s always something crunchy, something fried, maybe there’s some pastry, there’s some cheese, there’s a vegetable, there’s something on the grill,” Hafner has previously told Broadsheet. It’s followed by pasta, then a dish from the woodfired oven, another from the grill and, finally, dessert. If you don’t want to drive home right away, you can book a night at Graceburn House or the Glasshouse, two accommodation options on the same property as the restaurant.

Six-seat restaurant Chae might be one of the hardest bookings in the country to get. Chef Jung Eun Chae and partner Yoora Yoon run the restaurant inside their home. A lottery system allocates seats every month.

If you’re lucky to be one of the chosen, the drive to the restaurant from Melbourne takes you through lush fern gullies and towering mountain ash trees. At the restaurant you’ll be met with a nourishing Korean meal based around Chae’s own homemade ferments such as kimchi, vinegars and jangs (sauces and pastes) including chosun ganjang, a Korean soy sauce, and doenjang, a fermented soybean paste often likened to miso.

You also get to meet the couple’s black lab Haru, who’ll come out and bid you a safe trip before you drive back.

Many Little is from the team at nearby winery Polperro. It’s led by Sri Lankan-born chef Gayan Pieris (ex-Cumulus Inc).

The team describes the food as modern Asian and Sri-Lankan inspired. Pieris’s menu includes whole fried barramundi with idiyappam (soft and pillowy discs shaped-hoppers with thin strands of batter); a number of curries such as Sri Lankan black pork curry and sour fish curry; and bibikkan (a Sri Lankan coconut cake) with pumpkin and ginger ice-cream.

While the name makes it sound like an American diner, Greasy Zoey’s in Hurstbridge is a fine-dining spot from chef-couple Zoe Birch and Lachlan Gardner worth traveling for.

Birch and Gardner opened their eight-seat restaurant in 2017. They serve an ever-changing menu with a hyper-local focus. Birch cooks while Gardner works the floor and takes care of drinks. The snacky 12-course meal uses ingredients like locally caught flathead, native grasses, and native seagreens including kelp and seaweed from Southern Seagreens.

Tony Tan is a living legend. The chef and cookbook author converted an old butcher’s house in Trentham into a home where he raises chooks for fresh eggs, grows Asian produce, and works on his veggie patch and greenhouse.

It’s also where he runs Tony Tan’s Cooking School, where people from the city and elsewhere come to learn from the man himself. Class themes include dim sum and yum cha[1] ; Southeast Asian cooking; and the wildcard Tony’s Choice. Tan’s a natural teacher, and he will put you to work with his hands-on classes, so don’t expect to just watch him cook. At the end you’ll be rewarded with a beautiful lunch that you and your fellow students have all helped to prepare, wines and plenty of conversation.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Avis. Skip the paperwork when you pick up your car rental with Avis PreCheck – just fill out your rental agreement online so you’re ready to go once you hit the Avis counter. Better yet, if you’re a frequent renter join Avis Preferred for a more streamlined experience.