Many restaurants talk about sustainability, but few take the issue as seriously as Harvest in the village of Newrybar, in Byron Bay’s hinterland – solar panels (aiming to be off the grid by 2022), grey-water recycling, green waste composting, a zero-waste kitchen, glass straws… the list really does go on. And aside from the food produced in their own organic gardens, as well as sourced from local producers, Harvest have at their disposal a wild food researcher and dedicated forager, Peter Hardwick. Yes, that’s right, their own dedicated forager. Peter scours the local area for native ingredients, which he then presents to chef Alastair Waddell to craft the ever-evolving and highly individual seasonal menus.
Harvest is a charmingly sprawling venue, taking in repurposed Queenslanders, as well as outdoor spaces in and around their organic gardens. It encompasses a dining space, deli, bakery – with a 117-year-old wood-fired oven – and event spaces, both inside and out. As with the food direction, the beverage focus is very much Australian, with local brewers and distillers, such as Cape Byron Distillery, Lord Byron Distillery and Stone & Wood, favoured.
The wine list is again all Australian, with an unsurprising focus on producers who farm using organic and biodynamic methods. Minimal-intervention wines will little or no sulphur, and no chemical inputs are the order of the day, with lesser-known varieties and makers favoured, so as to highlight the diversity and quality of wine made in this country.
Amongst a happily crowded field that has been redefining the culinary landscape in this country, Mat Lindsay has stood out somewhat since the opening of his ground-breaking restaurant Ester in 2013. Working with the very back-to-basics essential of today’s chef–fire–he has forged (pardon the pun) a singular path of deceptively simple and visually exquisite dishes…
Sydney’s favourite Melbourne restaurateur transplant, Maurizio Terzini (well, he’s vying for that tag with the lads from Fratelli Paradiso…), pitched back into the pub game after a decade and a half (Melbourne Wine Room being his first foray) of focusing on restaurants, launching the new look Dolphin Hotel in 2016. And what a distillation of…
After falling in love with Byron Bay, James Audas and Tom Sheer initially decided to open a natural wine shop – Venue Luna Wine Store – but were then inspired by its instant success to also open a combined wine bar and restaurant, directly opposite the shop. The new venue, Bar Heather, which opened in 2022, drew inspiration from all of the owner’s favourite venues from around the world. Parisian bars were definitely an influence, but Bar Heather’s point of difference is its very particular focus.
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