The Patch restaurant opens in tiny Tomakin amid a South Coast dining boom

Despite a population of just 1001, the tiny seaside town of Tomakin is now home to a family-friendly 226-seat eatery, The Patch, complete with all the copper accoutrements and wood-fire oven accessories of a top-shelf city restaurant.

If you hadn't noticed, the South Coast of NSW is in the midst of a food boom. Narooma has caught the eye of Merivale, the hospo giant collecting venues in the town.

Tomakin, one hour north of Narooma, might seem an unlikely spot for a large-scale venue like The Patch, but John Tully from Tully Heard – the team behind Acre – explains they were approached to transform the local sports club after consulting on The Growers, a 450-seat venue that opened 18 months ago just outside Nowra.

Nowra – and its surrounds – has become the unlikely magnet for hospitality talent on the coast. Bangalay Dining, at Shoalhaven Heads, has Simon Evans, the former owner-chef of Woolongong's hatted (but now closed) Caveau.

And Douglas Innes-Will, a local who cut his teeth in the kitchen at Paperbark in Jervis Bay before picking up chefs' hats at Spicers Peak Lodge in Queensland and running culinary operations at Qualia resort in the Whitsundays, recently returned home as executive chef at Arthur Boyd's Bundanon.

At Ramox Cafe, which sits at one end of the art museum's award-winning addition, The Bridge, Innes-Will and his partner, Louise Korelin, are pumping out baked cauliflower with romesco sauce, chicken peri peri and baked goods.

"We both grew up here," Innes-Will says. "We've really noticed the number of producers who've popped up, the local sourdough and cheeses."

The chef also points to other new venues in the area, including Old Salt Distillery, which opened in an industrial part of Nowra this year and attracts a posse of off-duty chefs with its food. It helps when Old Salt's husband-and-wife owners, Terry and Michelle Robinson, both worked at Sepia.

Matt Fleming, the former head chef at now-closed Sydney restaurant Est, was one of the area's food pioneers. When Fleming isn't in the kitchen at Nowra cafe The Hub, you might find him at Bundanon, where he helps out with special events catering.

"He did a pop-up here earlier this month," Innes-Will says. When a former fine-dining chef turns his hand to a curry at a pop-up, it's fair to say the South Coast has come a long way.