Paper Daisy review

The Santa Vittoria Regional Restaurant of The Year is all about "style and substance by the sea" according to the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2017. The style slaps you in the face, from the head-turning glamour of the luxury boutique hotel Halcyon House, to the beachy blue-and-white detailed comfort of the dining room, open to lust-worthy views of a turquoise swimming pool and the pandanus-lined shore.

And the substance? It soon becomes equally obvious, as Paper Daisy's skilled executive chef Ben Devlin, former head chef of Brisbane's three-hatted Esquire restaurant, explores the potential of what he calls "Australian coastal cooking".

It's all house-made from the start, with crusty, dark bread flavoured with honey from the hotel's rooftop beehive, accompanied by milky grains of kefir and a wattleseed and macadamia spread that's like an upscale peanut buttera.

Even something as simple as scorched kangaroo loin on the three or four-course dinner menu has been salt-brined before being seared on ironbark charcoal, shredded into filaments, seasoned with wattleseed stock, macadamia oil and horseradish and finished with preserved Davidson plum, macadamia milk, fried prawn legs and prawn shell oil. I just … love it.

There's a similar back story to every dish on the menu, yet Devlin makes it look easy. Grilled, flinty Merimbula oysters perch on a bed of rocks, topped with smoked cream, finger lime and mustard seed. Lightly poached squid with shiitake mushroom juice looks and acts like a bowl of fresh, slithery noodles; while a clever dish of deboned confit chicken wings strewn with salt-fermented peas, salt bush and lemon thyme is brought together by a potato and whey puree.

And then there is the paperbark-grilled fish, which unfurls to reveal a fillet of gold band snapper, layered with sweetly slow-cooked and fried onions, wattle, seaweed and beach succulents, lightly smoky from the coals. It's intensely pleasing at some strange fundamental level; effortlessly sophisticated while still evoking the primitive pleasure of huddling around a campfire in the bush.

There's a high degree of control in this level of cooking – perhaps too much so in the case of slow-grilled, suckling pig marinated in shio koji (salted rice malt), which feels corralled into one dimension.

Desserts weave texture and acidity with fruit and freshness, including a windfall of pink lady apple sorbet teamed with roast applewood custard and apple and anise jelly under a cloak of smoked apple balsamic vinegar meringue.

Pacing is relaxed and staff are personable, particularly the quietly effective sommelier Hiro Okubo. His Euro-driven list is peppered with Australian labels of interest such as a clean, fresh, un-grenache 2014 Red Letter Day Grenache from Barossa winemaker, Greg McGill ($75).

The North Coast is suddenly seething with good places to dine; from Foam in Lennox Heads to Fleet in Brunswick Heads, with Harvest in Newrybar, Town in Bangalow, Three Blue Ducks at The Farm, and Beach in Byron Bay along the way. All good people, all growing a uniquely regional cuisine that serves up a sense of place with every dish. Paper Daisy itself, claims The Good Food Guide, is simply a great Australian dining experience.  It's a good call.

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.

THE LOWDOWN

Best Bit: Fine dining goes on holidays.
Worst Bit: Not staying overnight as well.