14 March 2009
The Australian Travel and Indulgence
THE AUSTRALIAN
THE CURIOUS COOK: Judith Elen | March 14, 2009
JUDGING by its name, I expect the Royal Mail Hotel, beneath Mt Sturgeon in Victoria's southern Grampians, to have a stagecoach stationed in front, or at least a horse rail.
Not at all. Although it dates from the 1850s, after a series of facelifts the Royal Mail has ended up with a rather stylish retro look. A strip of a building in pale stone and beige tiles, the dark craggy mountain rising beyond its roofline, the hotel is weirdly, wonderfully anchored in its remote setting.
Weirdly because, despite a location almost 300km west of Melbourne, its restaurant scooped this year's Gourmet Traveller regional restaurant of the year award as well as The Age Good Food Guide's country restaurant of the year gong. And wonderfully because, I soon discover, the restaurant could not exist exactly as it is anywhere else.
The nucleus of a skilled team is the uncompromising head chef-sommelier duo of Dan Hunter and Lok Thornton. Both are minutely focused on perfection and this gentle backwater allows them the scope to realise their aims.
Like the obscure hotel restaurants that dot the French countryside, the Royal Mail operates within a seasonal cycle, raising and harvesting its own produce but with a far wilder bent, tracking down the unusual (black radish, Aztec spinach) and inventing its own little universe.
Allan Myers, a director of Dunkeld Pastoral Company, which owns the hotel, has doubled the kitchen garden on his nearby property in the past year to furnish the needs of the restaurant, and two extra gardens have been added to the supply chain. Chef Hunter searches out vegetables not available commercially, buying seeds from rare-plant nurseries such as Diggers and Eden Seeds.
The mountain slopes are another food source. Hunter has worked in Spain with celebrated chef Andoni Aduriz, owner of restaurant Mugaritz. There, where staff gather wild herbs and mushrooms from the hills, he learned about using such foods.
Here, in the Grampians, Hunter's winter foraging brings wild garlic (bulbs, stems and the delicate white flowers), pine mushrooms and slippery jacks to the menu. The restaurant also has access to orchards growing stone fruit and berries. Thirty-five Isa Brown chickens provide 30 eggs a day. And Hunter is conferring with the pastoral company on fat lamb production to fit the particular needs of the restaurant.
When I visit, the menu offers seasonal venison , a dark symphony in reds and browns, and its flavours are just as earthy. A bloody slice of venison nests among roasted baby beetroot wedges, apple and the hint of clove sets it off, all on a generous black bed of granular chocolate shavings. Thornton teams it with 2003 Crawford River Cabernet Sauvignon.
Thornton's role as sommelier is the indispensible complement to the unique kitchen and he manages an equally singular cellar situated in a lock-up across the road rather than a basement. The restaurant's wine archives are famous, and Thornton leads us out into the night to see the collection (cellar tours are available to house guests), bay after bay, stored in a scrupulously maintained temperature in specially designed wire racks.
Thornton stresses the wines are not for showing off but are carefully selected for diners to drink and enjoy. (Included in the wines matched with our menu tonight are Philipponnat Reserve Rose from Champagne, two Sanchez Romate sherries from Jerez, Spain, and an Italian Santa Barbara Verdicchio.)
Wines on the 2000-strong list (which includes only the wines ready to be drunk) are close to their auction prices, Thornton says.
Another virtue of remoteness is that diners come to stay. Thornton tells me committed foodies turn up with windswept hair, eat and stay the night. Others stay two or three days and eat from a different menu each night (there are three options) but, if they want to repeat the full tasting menu, the kitchens will prepare a new list.
There are midweek packages and weekends are booked six to eight weeks ahead. The whole point is to come and savour the food and matched wines and forget about driving.
Judith Elen was a guest of Grampians Marketing Inc and Tourism Victoria.