Venues close for many reasons. Sometimes it’s beyond anyone’s control – closing because of the global pandemic is a prime example. Sometimes the restaurant in question just isn’t very good. Tom McHugo’s, one of Hobart’s most-loved pubs, is closing because the landlord wants to open their own pub in the 180-year-old Macquarie Street building. This one just hits different.

Since opening in 2016, Tom McHugo’s has developed a reputation for singular food that celebrates locality and seasonality – its relationships with Tasmania’s most respected growers and suppliers inform its menu as much as chef-owner Tom Westcott’s masterly way with ingredients. The drinks list, guided by the steady hand of co-owner Whitney Ball, is brimming with interesting wines and local beers, going above and beyond what anyone would expect from a Hobart pub. Indeed, Tom McHugo’s has become more than a pub: it’s a meeting place and a community fermenter that’s carved a name for itself as both a local favourite and a destination worth travelling for.

While we can’t harness the community’s collective grief to save Tom McHugo’s, which closes on June 19, we can come together and show its creators, Westcott and Ball – ever gracious and professional in their last days of trade – just how much they mean to us. I’ll go first: Tom and Whit, thank you for inventing (and deep frying) the haggis bao. I adore your unwavering opposition to steak nights, farmed salmon and table service. The next round is on me.

Before Tom McHugo’s calls last drinks on June 19, the pub’s suppliers, staff past and present, and most ardent fans share their memories and favourite dishes, and reflect on the legacy the venue leaves behind.

Phoebe Hawthorne, front of house, 2017–2024

At Tom’s, I got to combine my love of eating and drinking with my ethics. Many restaurants use flashy words like “local”, “sustainable” and “seasonal”, but not many actually translate. Whitney and Tom looked at the bigger picture. They want to change the industry and challenge the way we think about it.

You could have one punter at the bar eating a parmi and drinking a pint next to a celebrity chef who was drinking a bottle of Jura and eating cold cuts. The pub was perfect for that. I had customers come in for a basic beer ’cause their office was nearby, who ended up trying amazing foods they would never have normally eaten. Tom McHugo’s gained a lot of people’s trust in that way. It opened conversations around where the food came from and why we didn’t serve what we didn’t serve.

Matt Deakin

Deakin and his wife Paulette Whitney run Provenance Growers, which supplies Tom McHugo’s with obscure herbs and heirloom veg. Deakin and Westcott met while working as chefs at the pioneering, now closed, Tassie restaurant Garagistes in 2011. Since then, Deakin’s produce has followed Tom to every kitchen he’s worked in.

From the very moment Whitney and Tom opened the doors at Tom McHugo’s we knew we were all going to thrive. Honest, generous servings – farmer’s helpings – of vegetables graced every menu, still tasting of the field where they had grown. Tom and the crew took on every challenge we gave them. A row of cabbages once failed to form hearts – he braised the greens like collards and used the sweet, sappy flower stems as a luxurious sprouting broccoli.

I have a lump in my throat when I think that I will no longer find myself every Saturday, exhausted after a full day at the market, in the alley behind the pub, where I am always greeted with warm smiles from the chefs and front of house crew, and any weariness lifts away. Tom and Whitney, we love and deeply value the community you’ve built.

Adam James

James, the fermenter behind Rough Rice, has known Westcott since the Garagistes days. He cooked at two Tom McHugo’s staff parties and at Westcott and Ball’s wedding, which was held at the pub.

It’s always been so much more than a pub. It’s a pillar of the community. It’s the kind of place, like it or not, where you will invariably know at least half a dozen punters (usually more) and 90 per cent of the staff. It’s where I’ve celebrated birthdays, schemed pop-ups and events, and brought up my (now teenage) son eating chicken parmies and playing chess on the front bar. It’s where I would go once a week for a solo lunch and just order two vegetable dishes. Tom always showcased the best of local and seasonal produce with a simple yet thoughtful and creative treatment. Best $20 I’d spend all week. It’s where I’d meet friends and share a few drinks. It was home.

Stanley Robert and Briony Patterson

Robert and Patterson run Fat Carrot Farm in Oyster Cove, in Tasmania’s south. They’ve been supplying Tom McHugo’s with organic produce since day one.

We’ve never been into fine dining, mostly preferring hole-in-the-wall joints and street food – not things Hobart is famous for. In 2015, we ate a meal at Westend Pumphouse in Hobart and were surprised. It was really good! After that we got in touch with the chef – Tom Westcott – and eventually started selling him vegetables. He told us that he and his partner, Whitney, were about to start their own place.

Every week, we send Tommy a long list of what’s ready for harvest. If we say something needs to move, he enjoys the challenge. On delivery day, we can often be found eating here, often with other growers. It is a home away from home for us. They look after us, not just because they want our veggies but because they genuinely, truly believe that their producers are critical to what they do. We’re incredibly sad Tom McHugo’s will cease to exist, but we will always remember it as a place that really nailed it.

Bianca Johnston, chef 2018–2021

Johnston, former sous-chef at Tom McHugo’s, now cooks at Le Doyenne, a restaurant south of Paris by Australian chef James Henry.

Every chef has a venue they look back on as their formative years. For me, it was working at Tom McHugo’s that really shaped how I cook. Anyone working there quickly catches the infectious stance that Tom and Whit have on food and hospitality. In the kitchen, Tom has one of those rare minds that everyone envies – he can retain a crazy amount of information. There are not many “pubs” in the world that are fermenting sausages, drying delicata seeds for miso, ageing albacore “Worcestershire” sauce, or washing their cheeses with beer – all while producing an approachable menu, ensuring that everyone feels welcome without ever feeling intimidated.

Bianca Welsh

Welsh, who co-owns Launceston’s Stillwater restaurant with husband James Welsh, is a long-time Tom McHugo’s supporter, both as a regular and a fellow restaurateur.

Tommy’s was a place of solace and comfort for us during a significantly difficult time in our lives. But in saying that, it was a place we gravitated to in happy times as well. Being from the north, finding a place like home in Hobart was important for us when we needed comfort. [James and I] would gravitate here without even speaking to each other. The food and drinks we knew would feed our soul and comfort us – to not worry about quality or deliciousness is like taking a big sigh of relief. It brings me to tears the thought of this place ceasing to exist, but ultimately, it’s the people behind the bricks and mortar that make it. We look forward to what Whitney and Tom might do in the future. No doubt we’ll gravitate there, too, no conversation needed.

Sue Dyson and Roger McShane

Wine suppliers Dyson and McShane keep Tom McHugo’s stocked with fine, funky and unusual wines from first to last pour.

Sadly “meet you at the pub” is being abolished from our vocabulary. Tom and Whitney created such a strong community that everyone knew which pub. Lots of people talk of inclusiveness and sustainability, but few deliver it like these two did. And there were so many feasts – Tom’s compelling vegetable-based dishes from produce grown by familiar faces, his magnificent offal and sausages, and the best pie in Australia. Whitney sourced such wonderful wines and beers. And all of it was so affordable. From day one they tried to feed and nurture everyone. There are tears writing this. There will be more.

Michael Layfield and Lauren Byrne

Layfield and Byrne run Felds Farm, an organic market garden in Penna, in Tasmania’s south-east. They’ve made the weekly trip to Tom McHugo’s since 2017.

There will never be another Tom McHugo’s, or as we all call it, “The Pub”. It’s the perfect representation of Tasmania’s food scene, and everything you could want as a small-scale vegetable farmer. A busy and imaginative kitchen that views seasonality as an essential component of a good meal and never shies away from the unexpected, and a warm and vibrant front of house who make you feel right at home, no matter if you’ve donned your glad rags to celebrate or are cleaning off your boots at the door. We will deeply miss what Whitney, Tom and their crew have built on that corner. Thank you.

Alex Sumner

Sumner is co-owner of The Waterloo Inn, one of Tasmania’s best restaurants and a venue that might not exist if it wasn’t for Tom McHugo’s. It was there she met now-husband and business partner Zac Green.

Tom McHugo’s has been my church, and I’ve attended services regularly. Particularly memorable moments are my first tastes in 2017, learning to navigate the menu (always cheesebreads), and a drunken night in 2019 with a group of inimitable women who banded together – right when I needed it most – to celebrate a demised relationship … and there was Whitney at the bar (she’ll never know how much that meant). Then there was the joy of experiencing it as part of a new couple in 2020, full of butterflies and stupid smiles, bonding over bottles of wine and bowls of fried chicken. And now its final incarnation for us, as the sleep-deprived parents of a very social toddler who eats everything and adores all the staff. We will simultaneously celebrate and mourn its end. What legends.

Tom McHugo’s will have its last service on June 19, 2024.