Graceburn Wine Room

Mac Forbes renovated his cellar door and made it into a bistro in March 2017. Since 2010 he’s been working with a handful of carefully selected plots in the Yarra Valley, translating each vineyard’s distinctive characteristics into the glass with a minimal touch.

This 30-seat bistro turns his daytime cellar door into a bistro on Friday and Saturday nights.

The experience here is personal, with manager Rob Andre to guide you through Forbes’s many wines and the extensive museum list. A visit to Graceburn also gives you access to its Friends List, which features wines from other Australian and international grower-makers the team respects.

The space hosted food pop-ups with names such David Moyle (Longsong, Hobart’s Franklin), Matt Wilkinson (Pope Joan, The Pie Shop), and Erik Koel. The latter, a Canadian turned Healesville local, has spent time in the kitchens at Meletos and Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley and is now running the kitchen here. The dishes are simple and never overworked. And impressively, they’re produced out of what’s become colloquially known as “the cupboard”. There’s one hot plate, an oven, a domestic deep fryer and three tiny chopping boards.

The always-changing menu has in the past included snapper crudo, preserved lemon and chargrilled broccoli on a bed of ‘nduja custard, with fennel shaved on top. And a chickpea pancake: a pillowy cubic stack with crunchy edges that paired immensely well with the accompanying grilled zucchini, black-garlic hummus and house-made ricotta.

Graceburn Wine Room
11a Green Street, Healesville
(03) 5962 3704