The South-West France wine region

Photos from a visit just after it opened a couple of weeks ago, @poolishandco is yet another addition to the reasons why Cygnet may be the best small town in Tasmania for the availability of good food. With Cygnet Garden Larder a few steps away, a local butcher, and @theearlybirdmarketgarden just up the road, before you even start looking further afield, it’s easy to buy good ingredients and eat well. If you’re thinking of holidaying in #Tasmania and have a romantic vision of shopping for local produce and cooking each day in this area the romance can be matched by reality.

Meanwhile, back in Tasmania, this may be one of the best-sited picnic tables we have ever seen. It’s attached to the granite rocks at Bicheno’s blowhole. For your bucket list perhaps? There’s plenty of delicious seafood a short walk away at @tasmaniancoastalseafoods and @lobstershacktasmania if you don’t bring your own supplies.

Feeling grateful for the couple of trips we’ve managed to make out of Tasmania this year, including to Perth, early in August. Not willing to waste a moment (all travel is to be treasured and never ever taken for granted again) we somehow managed lunch at @madalenas.bar in the middle of a day of many tastings in spite of the fact all commonsense said we didn’t have time. It’s a bit of a blur apart from a very strong feeling of gratefulness that Joel, Matt and the kitchen indulged us after our tasting. Checking the time stamps, it seems, with @tomvanbeem’s help, we ate all these dishes in about 18 minutes. Not a bad effort! The octopus with fermented chilli sauce was as good as we remembered it from our first visit nearly two years ago now and the Abrolhos Island scallops with almond and mandarin is a glorious dish that deserved to be eaten and savoured much more slowly. But if the choice was to eat it quickly or not eat it at all we made the right decision.
Lots of exciting things happening at @madalenas.bar with a big project to add an upstairs bar underway. We hope our next visit is soon and slower!

One of the best things about last year (and best things during 2020 are guaranteed life long good memories) was @analiesegregory’s Friday lunches at @lucindawinebar. We’re so pleased they are back starting today (a Thursday but from next week on Fridays again).
It may be the only restaurant in the world where you are strongly advised to order ahead but you can only order the dish not a seat.
Somehow it always works out (and you can order takeaway as well).
In theory you can walk in to eat but it’s definitely not recommended. There is always a finite number of servings. These single dish lunches, always with something glorious for dessert, and with the potential for a glass of perfectly-matched wine, are highly sought after.
The advice is to keep a close eye on @analiesegregory’s Instagram posts a day or two before, DM her immediately she posts what she is making, and then enjoy something like
these beautiful hand-cut noodles, with enough squeak to carry a complex sauce seasoned with crab and Analiese’s black garlic.
And arrive early or late if you want to be immediately assured of a seat when you arrive.
As always, thank you @kobi_ruz for facilitating these delicious lunches by generously providing Lucinda to host them. You are a very important reason why this is a good town to live in, and these lunches are another.

Where to begin … a glorious lunch at @si_paradiso and a chance to hear a little more of @calemason’s upcoming projects (standby for @casa_perth, a beautiful space where the results of his wine hoarding over the last few months are about to be revealed).
Needless to say with Cale choosing we managed to dent their list of greatest hits (there are a lot) but still we feel only scratched the surface. If we lived in Perth we would eat here constantly – and probably, because it is big and very lively and we are old, at lunch time when it’s not quite so busy and the pace is relaxed.
Wine generously provided by @tomvanbeem who, more patient than us, still had a bottle of the de Moors’ 2014 Le Vendangeur Masqué Caravan, which we can report is still drinking beautifully. No matter where the grapes come from (Caravan is négoce fruit) the wine is always so distinctly de Moor. He also opened a bottle of Les Valseuses 2019 Ces gens-là. He has just started to import Antoine Le Court-Chedevergne’s wines (he of the beautiful @casaantolia just outside Arbois) and this, our first taste, was delicious. It’s as tasty as that colour in the glass promises (there is a photo).
This first photo is the lobster tramezzini – menu click-bait that takes you to a good place! There is also pâté en croûte (with truffles), kingfish crudo and steak tartare with celeriac chips, crab on roti (dangerous), mussel-stuffed baby calamari with amped up spices, aged coral trout topped with lemon and capers (the gentle acidity just right after so many rich dishes) and, just in case we hadn’t eaten enough, one of their justly famous pizzas.

We are very proud to have so many of our wines here and at the new Casa. They are in safe hands.

When you feel the call to drop in every night it’s pretty easy to work your way through the whole menu at @winesofwhile, a home away from home that can be a full on restaurant meal, a one glass of @twometretall cleansing ale pit stop after tastings all day, somewhere to drop in for a piece of custard tart or a satisfying piece of grilled sirloin with horseradish cream one dish dinner.

The custard tart may not always have pink grapefruit marinated in Mosse vermouth on the side, which was @jackbotha’s inspired addition when we did a by the glass take over the other night but it will still be delicious.

Here are some highlights from recent days.