"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.
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.
"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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