A famously charming Southern Highlands town has sleek new additions.
What sort of a traveller are you: a flop-and-drop relaxation seeker, nature enthusiast, food and wine connoisseur, or history and culture explorer? Being a sucker for personality profiling, I need to know.
A fun visual quiz has been developed by Bowral's newly opened Park Proxi Gibraltar hotel, to help guests curate a weekend itinerary. As someone who wakes up thinking about her next meal, I'm pegged as a food and wine connoisseur, and so, after an itinerary is generated with a click, I prepare to eat and drink my way around town.
It's an enticing prospect because Bowral, known for its English-style cottages and gardens two hours from Sydney in the Southern Highlands, has emerged as a serious regional food destination to rival the NSW Hunter Valley and town of Orange. It's also now a recognised cool-climate wine district with 60 vineyards and 15 cellar doors.
I'm travelling with my other half, who is French and - therefore - pinot noir runs in his veins. With an accent as thick as camembert despite living here for two decades, he is enthusiastic to visit "Booo-urr-al" (just imagine saying "Bowral" fresh from a wisdom tooth extraction and you get the drift).
Before we even drop our bags at the hotel, we're ticking off our first foodie experience, lunch at Harry's on Green Lane. There's a reason why this is a favourite spot for locals, with high ceilings, book-lined walls, profusions of greenery and artfully placed ornaments. Thinking I'd pace myself with a salad, I change tack when I see the menu and soon demolish a rustic duck terrine and progress to the crab linguine. I'm informed by staff the dish - with generous amounts of crab, al dente pasta and a creamy sauce with the right bite of acidity - never goes off the menu. It would be rude not to order Harry's bread and butter pudding for dessert, which is a decadent cube of buttery pastry layers drizzled in warm orange custard. (Just for fun, I ask our French waitress to tell me what town we are in. Of course, it's "Booo-urr-al".)
A short black to perk up, and it's time to check into the Park Proxi Gibraltar Bowral, which overlooks an 18-hole golf course and the hulking western face of Mount Gibraltar, locally known as "The Gib".
The hotel was recently taken over by the StayWell group, which has lovingly restored the challenging and picturesque golf course to its former glory, and overhauled the interior. If the chintz-and-roses aesthetic of Bowral's historic cottages is not your style, the Park Proxi offers a sleek, modern alternative in tones of burnished bronze, tobacco and charcoal. Our 40 square metre executive suite overlooking the green has a king-sized bed, rainwater shower and freestanding bath, with Appelles Apothecary toiletries. There is also a heated indoor pool with pearlescent tiles and small gym.
Our next meal is at Paste, a fine-dining Thai establishment which seems at first to be incongruously located amid a string of nondescript shops in downtown Mittagong.
This SMH Good Food Guide one-hatted restaurant is the Australian incarnation of the Michelin-recommended Paste Bangkok, created by chef Bee Satongun and her Australian restauranteur husband Jason Bailey. After hitting heady heights in Bangkok, with Satongun named Asia's Best Female Chef by World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2018, the pair returned to raise a family in Bailey's hometown of Mittagong. Judging by the steady stream of diners on a Friday night, locals are making the most of having a global culinary superstar in their midst.
Satongun uses herbs to create subtle and complex layers of flavour not overpowered by chilli. A signature dish of Moreton Bay bug with pomelo is beautiful with a local riesling, while a canape of duck and sawtooth coriander heaped on crunchy house-made rice crackers is a delight of taste and texture. A blood orange sorbet with hibiscus and plum wafer cuts through any flavour fatigue with a clear intensity, to punctuate a memorable meal.
Next morning, I'm watching all the action on the fairways from the dining room with a barista-made coffee and sourdough toast. There are also decent croissants, a full hot breakfast, and cute yogurt and berry pots.
Being a scorcher of a day, we go off-piste from the Food and Wine trail to visit Nellies Glen in the nearby Budderoo National Park, where there is a natural swimming hole and stunning lookouts of Carrington Falls.
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Dried off, we are looking forward to lunch at Centennial Vineyards, where an elevated Tuscan-style building overlooks neat rows of vines. The stone tiles on the verandah are cool underfoot and the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is idyllic, so we settle in to try a seafood menu with local wines. The scallops with coriander tandoori butter; crab and apple slaw on squid ink crackers and seared tuna tataki are visually elegant and delicious, matched with Centennial's 2021 Reserve Albarino. The dessert of cannoli with a pistachio ice cream is so good we clang spoons to get the last crumb. I feel like I've been on a European summer holiday.
We stop at Artemis Wines on the way home for a tasting, where Barry, a retired country high school principal, keeps up a knowledgeable and friendly patter. He explains how the Southern Highlands as a cool-climate wine district has developed apace in the past two decades, specialising in medium-bodied wines that are more subtle and complex than the big-bodied Barossa reds. We try an excellent Close Vale Pinot Noir and Artemis Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot, as well as a peachy, lightly oaked chardonnay.
I'm thinking it's not possible to eat or drink any more, but of course, there's dinner. We're trying out the hotel's Observatory restaurant, which adjoins Harveys Bar, just as the last golfers are finishing off their round. There's an emphasis on local produce and I order the lamb shank from Mittagong's Mae Hill Farm, served with mashed potatoes from nearby Robertson. It's excellent, with a glass of Oldbury Rd Shiraz from Southern Highlands Winery.
As a food and wine destination, Bowral is outstanding but as the other Park Proxi Gibraltar itineraries show, there's so much more to see - from the Bradman Museum to historic houses, art trails, spas, gardens and lookouts. Bowral, we'll be back.
SNAPSHOT
Where: Park Proxi Gibraltar Bowral (7 Boronia Street, Bowral) has 77 rooms, many of which are accessible, and an 18-hole golf course.
How much: Rooms from $203 per night
Explore more: parkproxibowral.com; visitsouthernhighlands.com.au
The writer was a guest of Park Proxi Gibraltar hotel.
