The Botanic Lodge, One of 2024’s Best New Venues, Now Does Dinner

When the Lodge opened in 2024, there was only one problem: there wasn’t enough time in the day to enjoy chef Tom Tilbury’s easygoing, elegant cuisine.

That all changes today – Friday January 17 – when the Lodge opens for evening and dinner services.

The team is taking advantage of the long summer nights – and the visitors to the Garden who have come to see the glistening glass of the Chihuly exhibition – to open for evening snacks and a set dinner menu.

Running from 5.30pm on Friday and Saturday nights, and from 3pm on all other nights, the snack menu includes an elevated crab toast with blue swimmer crab topped with crème fraîche and sorrel; an old-school pastie with mushroom preserve; and locally made charcuterie plates.

A set dinner menu will be available from 6pm on Friday and Saturday nights. It includes zucchini carpaccio with whipped ricotta and freshly foraged herbs, and whole roast Greenslade chicken with lemony gravy. Dessert is the Lodge’s signature lamington: it’s served with quandong jam, coconut ice-cream and a side of nostalgia.

For now, the set menu will only be available for Chihuly ticketholders. For $99 you’ll get dinner and a ticket to the exhibition, or existing ticketholders can get dinner for $79.

@thelodge_adl