This Yarra Valley winery restaurant has always been worth visiting. Now, it’s almost essential

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In December, it will be 20 years since TarraWarra opened to the public, a gift to the people by retail rich-listers, art collectors and philanthropists Marc and Eva Besen. Eva died in 2021; Marc will soon turn 100. The family’s 400-hectare Yarra Valley property is lined with vines, grazed by cattle, reserved as bushland, abuzz with honey bees and planted with fruit and vegetables. There’s also a dreamy visitor area. The TarraWarra Museum of Art is a significant regional gallery showing contemporary art in a sweeping and sensual, rammed-earth building that emerges from a hill, part monument, part artefact.

Its neighbours are TarraWarra Estate Restaurant, part of the original build by architect Allan Powell, and a tunnelling cellar door and sun-dappled piazza, which are newer constructions by Kerstin Thompson. Together, they are among Victoria’s best dining and wine-appreciation destinations, imposing and monumental but unpretentious and welcoming, showcasing the Yarra Valley’s seasons, nuances and bounty, just over an hour’s drive from Melbourne.

Since it launched in 2003, the restaurant has been worth visiting; now, under chef Joel Alderdice, it has become almost essential. The 60-seat dining room is a serene capsule with a stone fireplace, dark timber with brass accents and framed views spilling downhill. The food is consistently delicious, anchored and expressive. It pairs exquisitely with estate wine, allowing recent vintages and cellared beauties to prance and shine.

The off -menu version of the “rainbow” trout is surely one of the prettiest plates in the state.

In two-, three- or four-course menus, dishes startle with gorgeousness when they hit the table and please with their flavours and textures to the last scraped forkful.

There will always be Buxton trout, farmed over yonder. The fillet is steamed, glazed and torched, arranged with herbs and petals from the garden and a fish consommé is poured at the table. There’s an off-menu version, too, that’s surely one of the prettiest plates in the state: the “rainbow” trout is decorated with coloured stripes of finger lime, local salmon roe, saffron and dashi pearls, chopped chives, blue scampi caviar and spherified Four Pillars shiraz gin, made in nearby Healesville. Alderdice credits his sous-chef Maxwell Parlas with the idea, and references as inspiration an arresting tart at the leading fine-diner Attica in Ripponlea that counterpoints different finger-lime colours.

Chefs are always bouncing around, developing and sometimes copying the ideas of others. That Alderdice is keen to hat-doff to Attica chef Ben Shewry and his own second-in-command at TarraWarra is disarming and impressive. And there’s no doubt that his take forges forward in ways that are relevant to this restaurant. The molecular methods that result in perfect little spheres often look outdated and gauche these days, but they’re absolutely to the point here, aligned with the obsession, precision, time and art in the dish. The trout costs $70 on top of the regular menu price, but it’s hard to imagine regretting the outlay.

Vegan diners are well looked after, but anyone would love the plant-based beetroot “rose”. Using a mandoline, a beetroot is shaved into a single, metre-long sheet, which is poached in nut butter, rolled into an intricate flower and dressed with walnuts, herbs, pickled pumpkin and balsamic: it’s robust and ravishing, an adventure and a delight. The cavatelli with mushrooms is pure pleasure, dressed with a chicken jus foam that acts as a cosy, luscious doona for the pasta.

Duck is hit-and-miss in restaurants: this one is a bullseye. Hot-smoked breast is perfectly cooked, fat rendered and skin crisped. The legs are braised and formed into mustardy crumbed croquettes. Charred shallots, tarragon oil and raw celeriac round out the textures and tastes.

Macadamia caramel tart is a TarraWarra favourite, but a newer dessert is a stunner, using estate honey to make a parfait. This silky scoop is served with piquant, vermouth-poached pear, the aperitif made here from wine left over from cellar-door pours. The team at TarraWarra is remarkably consistent. Manager Darren Fraser will celebrate two decades here along with the restaurant. Yarra Valley local Alderdice finished his apprenticeship at TarraWarra before developing his talents at restaurants including Bar Liberty in Collingwood. He returned to TarraWarra at the end of 2021. “Tarrawarra” means slow-moving water in the local Woiwurrung language. That even the water wishes to tarry here is no surprise.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine