Barragunda Dining

Chef Simone Watts (ex-Coda) spent four years building her dream restaurant, Barragunda Dining. The 40-person spot, with its glasshouse dining room, sits on a regenerative farm and market garden on the 1000-acre Barragunda Estate, on the southernmost tip of the Mornington Peninsula.

The farm-to-table menu evolves constantly, focusing on reconnecting the local community to their food. There might be dried heirloom tomato with smoked stracciatella and tomato leaf oil, or mussels served with fennel à la Grecque.

For dessert, there’s a special dish that pays tribute to Watts’s late mentor and pioneering chef Greg Malouf. It features cardamon-infused orange blossom honey from the farm, apricot crème fraîche ice-cream and a peach compote finished in a peach pit vinegar dressing that’s bruleed with semolina.

The restaurant is owned by the Morris Family Foundation, with all profits from the set menu going back into the foundation’s work to improve food systems work.