Better and better – a cold night in at Pulp Kitchen

After a regional road tour through Victoria to Adelaide and back – packed with produce of every kind – the best recipe for happiness at home was a quiet spot in the corner at local restaurant Pulp Kitchen, enjoying a very different meal in a very different restaurant, after almost two weeks of very good  – and sometimes exceptional – food and drink.

The best antidote to the enchroachment of winter nights in Canberra is to catch up with friends at a table in the corner of Pulp Kitchen in local hotspot, Ainslie. Ainslie is sometimes called the Red Centre, because it has the highest Labor vote in Australia – maybe it's all those disaffected public servants who’ve seen way too much behind the scenes. However it’s more of a local shopping hub, which along with the restaurant, sports a bar, a spectacular Breton café, patisserie and baker, a very good supermarket with an excellent delicatessen, and an elegant and inventive homewares shop.

Very different meals, in very different restaurants
Our night out was soon after our return from a regional road tour through Victoria to Adelaide and back, which encompassed much eating and drinking of fine regional produce. The trip culminated in a five course degustation dinner at Wickens Restaurant at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, at the southern tip of the Grampian Mountains. Each of these two meals – in Dunkeld and in Ainslie – was very different, in very different restaurants. Yet they were both excellent in their own way, ­‘fit for purpose’ as they say.

Fettucine vongole, garlic, lemon and chilli.

At Pulp Kitchen we ate carefully prepared dishes and consumed carefully made wine to while away the night as autumn disappeared in the rear vision mirror. Being a relatively large group of five people meant that we could try a range of dishes. We started with three smaller dishes – kingfish, avocado and pickled ginger; smoked trout, chevre, beetroot and orange salad; and smoked cheddar soufflé, all of which were excellent and widely different in their flavours. With these three dishes, I knew the night had started exceedingly well.

Dispatches from the Royal Mail – Wickens restaurant delivers the goods

I’ve always been interested in the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, at the southern tip of the Grampians, and its varied offerings. It’s been one of Australia’s best regional restaurants for many years and I am particularly attracted by regional restaurants. I took advantage of a regional road tour through Victoria to Adelaide to update my first visit from several years before. In every respect the experience was worthwhile. The attention to detail and focused application was apparent, from the signature restaurant to the wider range of services it provides.

On a recent regional road tour through Victoria to Adelaide and back, I had a number of dining experiences which were memorable – each in their own way. These ranged from a breakfast of sourdough toast with poached quince, pistachios and honey at Big Table at the renowned Adelaide Central Market – surely one of Australia’s great wonders – to a counter meal by a roaring fire at the Gilbert Hotel in Adelaide city and finished up with an excellent Wagyu corned beef with onion sauce, capers, peas and mash and fusilli with bolognese ragu at the Mountain View Hotel owned by the Pizzini family in Whitfield in the King Valley.

‘Fit for purpose’
The high point of the whole trip were two meals other than these, one during the trip and one soon after arriving back in Canberra. The first was at Wickens at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, at the Southern tip of the ancient Grampians Mountains that rear up out of the flat plains around.

Stairway to heaven - the walkway to Wickens restaurant

The second – which I will write about in my next article – was at the local Pulp Kitchen restaurant in the heart of Ainslie, one of Canberra’s inner north suburbs. Each of these two meals were very different, in very different restaurants. Yet they were both excellent in their own way, ­‘fit for purpose’ as they say.

The Royal Mail kitchen vegetable garden - the largest of its kind in Australia

The signature of food – a garden, wine cellar and restaurant at the foot of the Grampians
The first experience was an encounter with the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld and its signature restaurant, Wickens. This is one of the hottest restaurants in regional Victoria – even making it into the popular media by being featured on Master Chef a couple of weeks after the trip.