Where is this delicious …………. from?
Just over an hour north west of Melbourne is Rocklyn, a gold rush ghost town where we grow much of the produce for our three restaurants under the name of Beer Garden produce.
The name comes from one of the few remaining buildings left in the town; the 1800’s timber Hotel Victoria which fronts several acres of fine volcanic soil. Purchased in 2020, the farm and pub are part of a long term project to establish a creative resource for our chefs while giving us more control over range and quality of produce and providing a place we can share with likeminded people.
The farm influences the menus at each of our restaurants, including Bistro Elba in Sorrento, Bau Bau in Mount Eliza, but it’s especially evident at Patsy’s, the city wine bar that opened a year after the garden was established, where the produce from Rocklyn is featured almost exclusively. In the way that wine can be the liquid expression of a vineyard and its location at a particular time, we hope that our produce can tell a story of this place and its seasons.
Like in viticulture where the best wine comes from the best grapes, we aim to give our crops and their landscape every advantage by employing regenerative agricultural practices. Minimal tillage and a range of cover crops help to maintain soil structure and the diversity of microorganisms crucial in growing healthy resilient crops.
We also use substantial perennial borders to encourage biodiversity and pest resilience while aiding in water penetration and creating valuable microclimates. These perennial borders are filled with herbs, grasses and trees grown both for their inherent value as companions and windbreaks, and also as a resource for the bar tenders and chefs to create syrups, tinctures and infusions for use in drinks and on the restaurant menus.
Beds are filled with unusual cultivars of many well known vegetables and edible plants. It’s also a place to trial the cultivation of rare plants; things that maybe better know in Europe but have never been commercially available in Australia. It’s a great point of difference for our restaurant guests and a way of creating our own market for premium produce grown using the most innovative sustainable techniques.
The Central Highlands of Victoria is a continental climate with very definite and sometimes extreme seasonal variations. The many different plants we grow here each reach potential at their own particular time in the season. This fills our menus with produce at its best, each leaf, seed, stem, root and tuber vigorous and flavoursome only for a short time; a chance to enjoy eating vegetables at their peak and anticipate the season to come.
This is the opposite to broad acre commodity farming where huge monocultures are harvested together to supply large markets and a great example of why a restaurant farm is such a rare and valuable thing.
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Seafood focused Southern French bistro - open daily from noon till late.
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Melbourne’s best vegetarian food in a cosy wine bar.
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The new Italian restaurant that Mount Eliza locals can’t stop talking about – with good reasons
