Pork belly, pipis, parma: Ambergris’ menu straddles new and old Geelong (and pub and restaurant)

Are you moving to G-Town, too? Shrugging off its sleepy hollow reputation, Geelong’s population is rocketing towards 300,000 with a growth rate that equals the Sunshine Coast.

By 2025, Victoria’s second city will overtake Wollongong to become Australia’s 11th largest urban area. What does that mean for restaurants? Talent sticks around, producers from the nearby Great Ocean Road, Otways and Bellarine get a boost, residents dine near home and the food scene improves in variety and quality.

Open since December 2022, Ambergris is one of Geelong’s newer places but it’s in a Gold Rush building spilling with character. Glossy timber, pressed tin and brickwork give the place a clubby, established feeling. A Chesterfield lounge facing a roaring fireplace is a wonderful antidote to wintry winds whisking down Moorabool Street.

You can play the venue as pub or restaurant: there’s seating in a side parlour or along the handsome bar. We’ll think about the beer garden come spring.

Owner David Ellis is a wine scholar making good use of the bluestone cellar (look out for plans for a speakeasy here down the track). The wine list shows depth and interest, with a sensible leaning towards local producers.

Chef Jackson Wilde’s clever menu straddles new and old Geelong. There’s safety in the steak with layered potato bake and a crumbed chicken that elevates the pub parma with a three-cheese sauce and a chunky sugo he’s been obsessing over for a decade.

There’s a coq au vin made with white wine: the maryland is exceptionally juicy.

Other dishes lean into Wilde’s time at Melbourne stayers Coda and Tonka and a couple of years living in Cambodia where he barbecued in a beach shack for hungry backpackers. Pork belly and pipis paddle together in a beguiling XO broth; daikon and samphire bring salty crunch.

The name is curious. Ambergris is a mysterious substance that forms in the stomachs of some sperm whales. Beginning as an accretion of beaks from the squid the whales eat, these bits bind together and grow into a hard, waxy mass.

It’s occasionally seen floating in the ocean or washed up on beaches. Long prized for its musky aroma and used as a fixing agent in perfumes, chunks of ambergris have sold for more than $1 million.

Why name a restaurant after whale goop? David Ellis told me it was because he likes the idea of something strange being turned into something beautiful. I like it, too: Ambergris is a restaurant with heart in a town on the rise.

I’ll see you on that Chesterfield.