Your Isuzu is a go-anywhere machine, so why not seek out an off-the-beaten track dining destination?
The Prairie Hotel
Where: Parachilna, SA. Best for: Gourmet feral fare
Almost 500km north of Adelaide and few hours south of Lake Eyre, Parachilna is an unexpected place. It's mostly famous for its iconic pub: a culinary delight with its own gallery and microbrewery, and a menu of top-shelf but unexpected fare. The Prairie Hotel’s roadside signs are famous in themselves, promising roo, camel and emu ‘on your plate’, but their garishness is, if anything, misleading.
Sitting down to a repast of feral antipasto, smoked miso eggplant, buffalo Reuben sandwich and spit-roasted porchetta—accompanied by South Australian wines and in-house Fargher Lager—is a world away from your typical Outback menu of deep-fried things in bain-maries. It’s almost like a trendy inner-city boozer in the desert, with zero pretension, poseurs or ironic e-bike aficionados.
Prairie Hotel, SA - www.prairiehotel.com.au
F.O.O.D. Week
Where: Orange, NSW. Best for: A tasting-plate intro to the Central Tablelands
It sounds like an extravaganza for carrot fans, but the Orange F.O.O.D. Festival is Australia’s longest-running food gala, having celebrated its 33rd birthday in April. Its 10-day program is full of highlights, from the opening Night Markets to the Sampson Street Lunch, held on a (closed) residential avenue on tables longer than the list of regrets of a middle-aged man at a Taylor Swift concert.
As GQ noted in April, ‘quite simply, Orange is a must-visit for any budding foodie’. It’s also fun that it seems to have been named on purpose to irritate the sort of people who twitch when someone says “ATM machine”. (F.O.O.D. stands for ‘Food of Orange District’, making this, technically, the Orange Food of Orange District Festival.)
Orange Food Week, NSW - www.orangefoodweek.com.au
Paradise Bakehouse
Where: Moore Park, Bundaberg, QLD. Best for: Aussie classics
If you earned a dollar every time you passed a roadside sign advertising ‘the best pies on the coast’, life as a grey nomad would pay for itself. But Bundaberg’s Paradise Bakery has the walk to back their talk, taking out Best Plain Pie in the 34th Official Great Aussie Pie Competition in 2023. No mango-drizzled marinated Himalayan yak pies here; their ‘simple yet mouth-watering’ Chunky Steak pie was declared the winner out of 1,600 entries at the industry expo Fine Food Australia in Sydney. Pick one up for just $6.40.
Paradise Bakehouse, QLD - www.paradisebakehouse.com.au
Masaaki’s Sushi
Where: Geeveston TAS. Best for: Meeting a master
Is Masaaki Koyama Australia’s best sushi chef? The Japanese maestro moved to Tasmania in 2007 after falling in love with a local girl, using westernised fare to accustomise local palates to his food. Now he’s a sensation, with big city foodies (and internationals such as Rick Stein) making the pilgrimage to his door.
Masaaki Sushi, TAS - www.masaaki.com.au/
Banana Boogie Bakery
Where: Belair, SA. Best for: Speed scoffing
Pies are fine, obviously, except when they drip lava-hot gravy onto your hand, then crotch, during cornering. That’s why driving purists agree that the sausage roll is the best driver’s on-road snack. Baker Jason Spencer says his “really buttery, melt-in-your-mouth” house-made puff pastry is the secret to his sausage rolls, which were awarded the nation’s best in 2023.
Banana Boogie Bakery, SA - www.facebook.com/BananaBoogieBakery/
The Enchanted Fig Tree
Where: Kangaroo Island, SA. Best for: Magical realism
A seasonal pop-up wilderness dining experience open from November to April (check the dates!), the Enchanted Fig Tree is part Tolkein and part Alice In Wonderland. Chef Stephanie Vass showcases local ingredients (and Kangaroo Island Spirits) in a series of ‘rooms’ divided by the limbs and cascading foliage of a 120-year-old fig tree.
The Enchanted Fig Tree, SA - www.thefigtreeki.com.au
Jamala Wildlife Lodge
Where: Canberra, ACT. Best for: Slight terror
Indulge in four-course African-themed gourmet dining with genuine, living hyenas and white lions separated from you by a sheet of glass. That’s the unnerving but exhilarating experience offered by Jamala Wildlife Lodge, in the nation’s capital, with a rotating seasonal menu served in their ‘Rainforest Cave’ room.
Fare includes dishes such as native macadamia-crusted snapper or trio of wild mushroom risotto, each paired with selected Australian wines and Moët. Who’d have thought you could munch away while being watched by something that would happily devour you? Actually this is probably pretty common at cabinet room lunches.
Jamala Wildlife Lodge, ACT - www.jamalawildlifelodge.com.au
Tali Wiru
Where: Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, NT. Best for: Once-in-a-lifetime dining
Ever peered out across the billiard-table Outback flanks of Uluru in the gathering dark, marvelled at the electric ochre tones of The Rock (not Dwayne Johnson) and thought, ‘I could go yellowtail kingfish with yuzu pearls, fermented quandong salsa, scampi caviar and desert lime’?
If so, the Australian Good Food Guide chef’s hatted, al fresco restaurant Tali Wiru has you covered. A four-course dinner is a substantial $440 a head, but few experiences rival this four-hour, 15-minute dining indulgence, served on a private dune alongside premium Australian wines.
Tali Wiru, NT - www.ayersrockresort.com.au/
Parker Street Project
Where: Dunkeld, VIC. Best for: Casual classics
Next door, the Parker Street Project’s upmarket sibling restaurant, the chi-chi Royal Mail Hotel, has a 30,000-bottle wine cellar and Executive Chef Robin Wickens’ eight-course degustation. But the more casual Parker Street is a find of its own, with modern classic, seasonal fare made with garden-grown and locally sourced produce.
Parker Street Project, VIC - www.royalmail.com.au
Marrickville Pork Roll
Where: Marrickville, NSW. Best for: The world's best sandwich
Nominated as Australia’s best by Masterchef host and banh mi obsessive Melissa Leong, this tiny hole-in-the-wall in Sydney’s inner west has lines of punters waiting with a sort of keening look more familiar to methadone clinics. Is the iconic crusty baguette plus cold cuts, páté and mayo, spring onion, chilli and the rest the world’s best sandwich? (Yes.)
Marrickville Pork Roll, NSW - www.restaurantwebexpert.com
Belly up to Bruny Island
Where: Bruny Island, TAS. Best for: A tasty microcosm of the Apple Isle's artisans
South of Hobart and accessible by car ferry, Bruny Island’s 600 inhabitants punch above their weight in terms of artisanal produce. There’s the Bruny Island Beer Co., the Bruny Island Cheese Co., Australia’s most southern vineyard, Bruny Island Premium Wines, the Bruny Island House of Whisky, and even the Get Shucked oyster farm and restaurant.
The latter may have missed the memo about naming conventions—would it have killed them to have worked a ‘Bruny’ in there?—but it does have a drive-through, so you can get shucking solo, or with a friend, without having to leave your Isuzu. “The world needs places like Tasmania,” says award-winning cheesemaker Nick Haddow. Try his Raw Milk C2, which won a Super Gold Medal at the World Cheese Awards 2023.
Bruny Island, TAS - www.brunyisland.org.au
