Beechworth and the King Valley

King Valley Cucina
The Provenance Beechworth
The Stanley Pub
 
King Valley Cucina

King Valley Cucina is perfect for a quick stop to line the stomach between tastings along the King Valley. Located at Redbank Winery, the Cucina offers fresh, cheap, thin crust pizzas for just 12 bucks, and even offer gluten free options for just two dollars more. The Spicy Italian Sausage version featured rich Napoli sauch, mozzarella, baby spinach, Trevisan salami, locally made sausage and a good chilli kick. The capricciosa boasted shaved fresh ham, salami, salty anchovy fillets and kalamata olives. Each day the Cucina’s blackboard offers more substantial Italian specials, and delicious desserts like honeycomb semi-freddo. It’s an easy, quick lunch for less than $20 with a wine or boutique lemonades.

The Provenance Restaurant and Luxury Suites

Winner of The Age Good Food Guide’s Best New Country restaurant for 2010 and recipient of two sought after “hats” in 2011, this was always going to be an impressive meal.

Housed in an historic old bank in Beechworth’s main street, Provenance is unique from the get go, as you enter a courtyard and ring a trill old bell to be let in. The main dining room itself is warm, despite being in such a formal building, with dark carpets, solid timber tables and perhaps the most impressive looking ceiling I’ve noticed in a restaurant to date (not that I often notice the ceiling in such establishments).

Michael Ryan offers diners an a la carte menu of five starters, six mains and three sides; or alternatively there’s a degustation offer of six courses at $90 (or $140 with matching wines). The degustation really is terrific value, and most impressively for the meat-haters among us, they have a complete separate vegetarian degustation which to my mind is almost unheard of.

From the entrees, roasted broccoli sat atop tasty white bean puree, with crunchy confit garlic; more subtle was the roasted Milawa quail breast and confit leg that came with wasabi pea puree and and braised tofu – didn’t quite get the wasabi connection, but the bird was cooked beautifully. But the entrée that I’d been waiting for delivered in every way, it was the heirloom carrot tarte tatin with goats cheese, olive crumbs and caramelized onion. The onion and coloured carrots kept the dish somehow close to its sweet origins, creamy goat’s cheese and crunchy crumbs proved the perfect accompaniment to the chewy, buttery pastry.

From the mains, the Milawa duck was a generous meal, three rounds of breast atop crusty polenta with squares of pickled, jellied quince. But the tastiest addition was the round of shredded duck leg, salted and steamed then mixed with toasted pine nuts, raisins, sautéed onion and thyme then wrapped in a single silverbeet leaf.

The slow cooked lamb dish was as colourful as it was mouthwatering, dotted with carrot puree, beetroot and picked Jerusalem artichokes. The side of brussel sprouts sealed once and for all for me just how my parents were able to use them as a threat/punishment for so long – enough said.

Desserts were the perfect example of Michael Ryan’s flexibility and creativity, from a heavy, gooey, but gorgeous chocolate parfait with spiced peanut sponge cake and salted peanut caramel; to a light, refreshing dish of apple scoops poached in four different flavours (scotch, elderflower, ginger and balsamic) with sweet hazelnut crumble and delicate buttermilk sorbet. The former was positively guilt inducing, the latter a perfect way to finish for those a little more concerned about their waistline.

The Stanley Pub

We actually stayed overnight in the Stanley Pub’s French provincial room, and after devouring the variety of housemade breads on offer for breakfast (including divine macadamia bread with home-made raspberry jam) it was hard to resist a Sunday lunch in their dining room, smack bang in front of the open fire (the pub actually has at least three fireplaces that I counted).

I’m fairly sure that a pub within a town that has a local school enrolment of just seven should have staples on the menu like a parma, or at least sausages of some description – but the ever-so-hospitable owners of the Stanley have refused to go with convention. The result is a refined, adventurous menu that saw me dine on twice cooked pork belly with pigs ear salad – the crackling on my piece of belly was so crunchy and thick I needed a steak knife to attack it. The aforementioned ears were much less confronting that they sounded, on a crispy witlof salad, they tasted similar to lardons - salty bacon bits coated in a sweet, syrupy dressing. Snapper pie was anything but the archetypal creamy fisherman’s version, the one had a Mediterranean bent, layered with green beans, tomato confit and salty olives and drenched in a saffron butter.
Vegetable sides change according to the season, our cabbage was buttery, bacony, and the perfect winter accompaniment. We’d been “strongly advised” to taste the French fries with truffle salt, and let me just say they left the well known carbs at that famous stop just before Glenrowan for dust (yes – I’m talking about McDonalds) .

Service is relaxed, but it is so very friendly – from the tree changer publicans, to the gorgeous local girls, this is city quality food and drinks with charming country hospitality. The wine list features impressive local and international wines, and I’m planning on heading back to finally make my way to the dessert list and try the chocolate and chestnut pudding with chestnut crème and smoked chocolate sauce – I will be back!

PLAY: Ela Carte from the top of Mt. Buller

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3AW Food - Eating Melbourne

3AW is Food: Melburnians love to eat so it's fortunate we live in the culinary capital of Australia. On this dedicated food page you will find the latest recipes by Bob Hart as well as Tony Leonard's Pub of the Week reviews. La Luna head chef Adrian Richardson also serves up a dish from his own cook book and food reviewer Ela Carte visits one of Melbourne's hottest eateries weekly.