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Hugh Wennerbom opens The Argyle, a country pub with a difference

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

'We've created somewhere guests can stay and eat local produce.'
'We've created somewhere guests can stay and eat local produce.'Supplied

"It's a country public house rather than a country pub," Hugh Wennerbom says of his latest project, Taralga's The Argyle Inn in the Southern Tablelands.

The Argyle opens its doors under Wennerbom's watch on Saturday after a year-long restoration and design rejig.

Wennerbom is a one-time philosophy student turned cook who set up then sold fresh food wholesaler Murdoch Produce before running off-piste dinners in Sydney long before the term pop-up was part of the local food lexicon.

'There is a Victorian thing going on': The dining room at the new venue.
'There is a Victorian thing going on': The dining room at the new venue.Supplied
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He supplies chickens to some of our best restaurants and owns a farm in Taralga, so why wouldn't he open a food venue off the beaten track?

"We'll do the same sort of food and set price ($65 in the restaurant, $45 in the bistro) we did at the pop-ups in Clovelly and Woollahra," he says.

The Argyle Inn is a joint project with Keith and Maureen Kerridge, from Bannaby Angus, and it helps that Wennerbom's wife, Mary Ellen Hudson, is an architect who has overseen the Inn's rebirth.

"There is a Victorian thing going on. I guess you call the new look contemporary traditional," Wennerbom says of the major renovation.

"Doing it with Keith and Maureen is like a collaboration between farms. We've created somewhere guests can stay and eat local produce.

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"Nigel Ward, formerly of Sagra, has been helping out on the launch."

Open Fri-Sat 12-10pm Sun noon-5pm

80 Orchard Street, Taralaga, NSW, theargyleinn.com.au

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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