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“The most popular dish is steak,” was the response from a plum-mouthed
waiter when asked to recommend a dish from the Royal Mail Hotel restaurant
menu. “We are well known for our steak. We are a pub after all.” The
Mail’s restaurant serves two kinds of steak – grass-fed Seattle beef
(A$31), or grain-fed Hopkins River beef ($41). Both are artistically
served on a stack of white bean cassoulet with cavalo nero, and a goats cheese
and chive fritter. No sign of a side order of chips. Not a dribble of
pub-made gravy.
Up until around six years ago, the Royal Mail Hotel in Victoria's Southern
Grampians was a very typical
country pub in a very typical aging country town known as Dunkeld. Philanthropist and QC Allan Myers, who was born in
the town and
educated in nearby Hamilton, has transformed the Royal Mail site into an
up-market accommodation, eating and drinking complex. Today the fancy
Royal Mail would look more at home in uptown Margaret River than it does
in downtown Dunkeld.
The Royal Mail Hotel, and Myer’s nearby many-hectare Dunkeld ‘home’,
almost dominates tiny Dunkeld. The small Victorian town otherwise consists
of a few shops and cafes, a tourist bureau, and a museum that run
side-by-side on Glenelg Highway at the foot of the tourist-friendly
Grampians region. The nearby Myer ‘home’, barricaded in by metre-plus tall
stone walls, grows and contributes a substantial amount of produce for the
Royal Mail kitchen.
The view. Beautiful Mt Sturgeon.
The main Mail site contains a number of deluxe units with floor-to-ceiling
windows that take in the full view of nearby Mt Sturgeon. A few kilometers
away at the base of Mt Sturgeon, the Royal Mail has a number of cottages
re-developed from old bluestone miner’s huts. The main site also has a
swimming pool, a nearby function room and a bar that annexes the existing
old sandstone art deco that operates as the Royal Mail’s centre point.
Ross Bywater co-manages the Royal Mail with
Hamilton-born wife Penny.
During winter the bar’s fire is constantly lit. “Some locals, like the guy
by the fire over there, coming in every day,” Ross Bywater, the Royal
Mail’s efficient and affable new manager, said of a well-dressed retiree
drinking a cup of coffee by the fire. “The Royal Mail has tried to keep
that balance,” he said, “by appealing to both locals and visitors”.
Penny Bywater readies the restaurant's bistro
for Sunday lunch.
The existing old sandstone art deco building houses both the restaurant
and the bistro in the one open-plan room. The cheaper-fare bistro, filled
predominantly with locals on a Saturday night, sits to the right of the
partially enclosed kitchen. The more formal restaurant, typically booked out by Royal Mail guests,
sits to the left. The atmosphere in the restaurant was fine-dining
conservative. Main Mail restaurant meals were priced around $25-$40 and
the award-winning wine list was extensive.
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The daytime atmosphere was considerably more relaxed. Seventeen year-old
Cara, brewing coffee nearby the cabinet of on-premises baked tall, rich
and good looking cakes, was as sunny as the next-day breakfast-time
atmosphere. Coffee delivered, she explained the origin of the delicacies
served on the popular dinner-time Local Plate ($14 for one person, $25 for
two people).
“The tomatoes you ate last night were from Mt Sturgeon,
which is our own property” she said. “The mushrooms were too. The sheep's
milk fetta was from The Grampian Sheep Dairy in Glenthompson, which is
around 10-15 minutes from Dunkeld. The smoked trout was from Warrnambool.
The cured beef was Hopkins River cured beef. The Manzanilla olives were
from Mt Zero, which is down near Horsham.
“And the grissini sticks were made here,” Cara said with a laugh. “I’m a
trainee in the kitchen here as well, and a lot of effort goes into those
grissini sticks let me tell you!”
Local produce features heavily on the Royal Mail restaurant menu. The
entrée-sized steamed game dumplings are served with Mt Zero Du Puy lentils
and crispy fried leek. The saffron hair with tuna confit, red pepper,
capers and green olives and basil is infused with Mt Zero olive oil. The
twice cooked pork belly is from the Western Plains.
Head chef Jo Fisher, who has been with the Royal Mail for five years,
changes the Sunday lunch menu every three months. “You get the regulars
that come in once a week, once every fortnight, or once a month, and they
like something different” Ross, who co-manages the Royal Mail with his
Hamilton-born wife Penny, explained while setting tables for the next-up
lunch-time customers.
Allan Myers and his wife Maria are (of course) Royal Mail restaurant
regulars. “Mr Myers and his wife were in here last night - they were
sitting over there by the back window” Ross said, pointing to the area
that acts as an invisible border between the bistro and the restaurant.
“Maybe you saw their green Bentley parked outside?”
Details
The Royal Mail Hotel has an attractive
website and maps
and directions. It is on Parker Street, Glenelg Highway, Victoria.
Mt.Zero Olives also has an
attractive
website where you can order their organically grown Du Puy lentils,
vinegar and olive oil.
The Visit Victoria website has a 'local
produce page' for Grampians product.
There's also a very serious,
Visit The Grampians website.
Contact Jackie:
jackie@regionalfood.com.au |
