This ‘monumental’ winery restaurant lives up to its name, but how’s its menu?

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There’s something about architects and wine. Not the drinking of it, though I’ve heard some do enjoy a glass. It seems architects are drawn to growing grapes and seeing their own bottles on the table. There are synergies, I suppose: both pursuits explore intersections of nature and nurture, science and art.

John Denton is one. His firm designed Melbourne Museum and the cheery “cheese stick” on the airport freeway. His Yarra Valley home and vineyard are actually up for sale if you have $13 million or so to hand. Meanwhile, architect Jeremy Schmölzer is half of up-and-coming High Country winemaking duo Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown; look for their 2023 Barbera, an easy-drinking red that loves a little Esky time during summer. And then there’s Nonda Katsalidis, whose company conceived the sky-punching Eureka Tower and Hobart’s spectacular MONA.

Katsalidis has turned his Romsey weekender, one hour north of Melbourne, into the Mount Monument winery, cellar door, restaurant and sculpture park. It’s definitely worth a visit.

The namesake mount is a dramatic rock formation with geologic similarity to nearby Hanging Rock. It overlooks a hillside of sculptures set among olive trees and superintended by muscled male kangaroos overseeing dozens of family members.

Down the hill, a two-level winery, restaurant and cellar door are cut into the land, overlooking rows of vines pleasingly set on a shimmering diagonal.

There’s a danger with oft-changing menus that the cooking and plating isn’t as consistent as it might be.

Katsalidis was awarded an Order of Australia in 2021, partly for his contribution to sustainable and efficient construction. The steel and concrete panels for this structure were prefabricated in Melbourne; the aesthetics are brutalist and blokey with oxidised elements anchoring the building in the earth. Importantly, in a region that tends to be tinder-dry, fire-proofing was prioritised.

There’s sculpture inside, too. As you walk across a gangway, you’re greeted by a huge, pressed-tin head by Richard Stringer. If only this figure would turn
around and gaze outdoors, his grim mood would surely lift. If he settled in for the shared, four-course feast, his set lips might even bend into a smile.

Chef Ben Salt grew up in the area and he’s passionate about highlighting local produce in his first head-chef job, sourcing many ingredients within five kilometres. There are some excellent dishes. The minerality of Coffin Bay oysters plays beautifully with a mignonette dressing made with estate riesling.

Beetroot is roasted to gentle, caramelised sweetness, set over whipped feta and scattered with borage flowers and crunchy buckwheat. It’s pretty, delicious
and dietary-friendly: that “feta” is actually vegan.

Pepper-crusted tuna is seared and served with lime aioli and cassava crackers, the richness, zestiness and crispness all working in concert.

I had very good slow-roasted pork belly with bruleed pear; you might get lamb backstrap with salsa verde.

Mount Monument’s restaurant is heading towards its first birthday. With a little finessing and polishing, its score will improve. Service aims towards formality and was generally good, especially when it came to making accommodations for the allergies of one person at my table. There were lapses, though. My water was inadvertently swapped from still to sparkling mid-meal and a waiter wiped our crumbs onto a plate still dirty from a nearby table.

On the food side, there’s a danger with oft-changing menus that the cooking and plating isn’t as consistent or resolved as it might be. I feel mean saying that because restaurants should be flexible and responsive to produce availability, but it’s also true that dishes get better after they’ve been cooked and tweaked a
few hundred times.

That may explain why my party of three was puzzlingly served two plates of most dishes to awkwardly divide between us. It could also account for the underwhelming panna cotta dessert. Two pallid, gelatine-set cubes of berry-flavoured cream sat wanly among a scattering of torn sponge cake and smear of raspberry jam. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a limp end to a meal. I’m being picky – my friends and I had a really enjoyable afternoon – but that’s where the points go.

If you’re not up for a long lunch, it’s also possible to visit Mount Monument for a cellar-door wine-tasting ($15) and snacks, followed by a wander around the sculpture park.

Thus fuelled, you might contemplate crafted forms and ancient landscapes, shadow-play and permanence, the possibilities of profundity in art, architecture and wine. Or you might just do as I did and take dozens of bad photos of kangaroos and their cute joeys.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine