Australia’s trendiest food and drink experiences

You can still experience an immersive food foraging experience without leaving the city on an Aboriginal Bush Food Experience tour in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. You’ll learn about the plants growing in the garden and how they have been used by Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Use traditional methods to gather and prepare food, learn how to identify seasonal bush foods and taste bush food-inspired recipes.

Little Lon Distilling Co., housed in Melbourne centre’s last remaining single-story house, makes small-batch gins that raise a tipple to the delightful deviants who once trod the lurid laneways of the city’s north-east corner. Brogan’s Way, in the suburb of Richmond, is proudly led by a female master distiller who got her start as a medical laboratory scientist. Using Australian botanicals, the gins created here are designed to challenge the conventional ideas of what gin should be like.

Adelaide may be best known for its surrounding wine regions, but that hasn’t stopped budding alchemists from experimenting with small-batch gins and rums. Prohibition Liquor Co. was inspired by the bootleggers of the prohibition era, but they’ve taken the artisan route to create a premium product. Twenty Third Street Distillery on Melbourne is a new outlet for the Renmark stalwart, allowing city dwellers to experience the craftsmanship behind the resurrected distillery (originally built in 1914) in the Murray River region.

Just an hour from Melbourne, in the picturesque wine country of the Yarra Valley, you’ll find Oakridge Restaurant, where Co-Executive Chefs Matt Stone and Jo Barrett construct their seasonal menus based on the thriving ingredients in the Oakridge Kitchen garden, as well as wild produce they discover on foraging and fishing excursions around the region. Taste wines at the cellar door before settling in for a delicious long lunch.

Set on an 80-acre farm in Byron Bay, the team behind Three Blue Ducks create every dish with a goal to nourish the community with ethical, authentic, quality food and hospitality. Many of their ingredients come from The Farm, while others are sourced locally, always with a preference for sustainable farming practices, organic and spray-free. The food is hearty and full of flavour and the venue is laid-back. Book a table in the restaurant or bring a picnic blanket and purchase a hamper filled with meats, cheeses, dips, bread and other goodies to enjoy in the gorgeous fields of The Farm.

If you’re in Sydney, book in for a degustation dinner at Ester where you can match their fantastic menu to one of up to 15 orange wines featured on their rotating list. 

Marion, in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, offers an extensive wine list, including some exciting Australian amber wines that pair up nicely with the venue’s ever-changing menu, while The Moon in Collingwood will require a sense of adventure, but the wine list and bar snacks promise to please.

In Adelaide, head to Leigh Street’s Pink Moon Saloon. With an exterior somewhat reminiscent of a Swedish sauna, the interior is just 3.6 metres (just under 12 feet) wide and divided into three spaces. Settle in at the front bar to experience what’s on offer from Australia’s winemakers, including a great selection of orange and amber wines.

Local brewers are also experimenting with nitro beer, which involves carbonating the beer with a 70/30 mix of Nitro/CO2 before it gets poured from the draught through a nitro line and special tip on the tap that slows down the pour and aerates the beer. It’s still in its infancy, but you can find breweries like 4 Pines in Manly and Stone and Wood in Byron Bay experimenting with it.

Beer enthusiasts know there are four key ingredients that go into making beer – malt, hops, water and yeast. As none of these ingredients are animal-derived, it may not be clear why vegan beer is suddenly a thing. The trend is growing in response to some producers using certain additives for clarity and texture (such as fish-derived products and lactose). In Sydney, head to Yulli’s Brews for vegan beer paired with a vegetarian menu. Melbourne’s Moon Dog has a mostly-vegan range of craft beers best tasted from the comfort of their soft couches.

Near Bendigo, just an hour north of Melbourne, you can settle into Balgownie Estate to stay in one of their luxury glamping tents with private decks that offer views of the vineyards or bushlands. They offer bell tents as well as luxe, open-plan safari tents with all the modern conveniences.