One of our state’s greatest assets is its light: the purple of Melbourne’s late afternoons; the dazzling gold slant of the sun across the fields of Central Victoria; the misty and mysterious blue of the filtered rays through the trees of East Gippsland. On the Mornington Peninsula, if you’re a little away from the startling blue of the bay, the light can sometimes be almost peachy orange – pure and glorious.

At Barragunda, the new restaurant at Cape Schanck, the room makes amazing use of that fire-touched light, which shines over its wood and earth tones and casts the dishes of chef Simone Watts in warm clarity. It helps that the room and the food are already gorgeous. But there’s a sense in the design of the space, the large windows looking over a sandy garden, that the landscape and light of the Cape are invited in, as integral a part of your meal as the food, wine and service.

Barragunda is a project of astonishing ambition. Operated by the Morris family, who have owned this land for 15 years, the restaurant and its gardens have been in the works since 2021. The estate sprawls over 1000 acres, much of it native bushland, but there’s also edible produce being coaxed from this sandy soil, and revegetation projects are repairing the land from past grazing.

It’s an environmental project in more than one way – kitchen and restaurant waste is composted, plastics are avoided, and profits are redirected to the family foundation, which supports “innovation and systemic change in Australia’s food systems”.

From the consumer point of view this is, at its heart, a very fancy restaurant. But it’s certainly one with objectives that go beyond luxury and revenue.

It is also, compared to its counterparts, relatively inexpensive. I’ve long complained of most degustations that they are too long, too heavy and too expensive. “Cut the menu in half! Cut the cost by a third!” I’ve whinged to dinner companions multiple times over the past few years. In many ways, Watts has done just that. There are snacks, a seafood course, a meat course, a pre-dessert and a dessert, and the cost is $145. I’d label it a bargain.

Those snacks are garden-led: baby vegetables with a decadently creamy sabayon made from leek tops; a danish, its golden pastry fantastically lacquered and stretchy, filled with sweet and smoked eggplant and black garlic; a kofta ball made from smoked hogget. Many of the dishes here have a lightly Middle Eastern bent, an homage in part to the late chef Greg Malouf, who was a mentor of Watts’.

I was lucky enough to dine here at the tail end of tomato season and get a glorious dish of whole heirloom tomato that had been dried and reanimated into a slump of sweet flesh over stracciatella cheese, an intense ode to the end of summer.

Next up: Port Arlington mussels, some poached, some tempura fried in a sourdough batter, lending a tart and deeply savoury note to an otherwise acid-forward dish, led by fermented fennel and softened with sunflower cream.

The main course is a rustic spread of black Angus raised on the property, alongside a springy salad and a yellow gazpacho topped with charred yellow peppers. The steak is lovely, but I especially appreciated the deep comfort in the jumble of ossobuco, made into a ragu with green-picked figs and rainbow chard.

Dessert is also a high point – a semolina and peach confection in recent weeks, infused with cardamom and bathed in orange blossom honey, its apricot ice cream topping and cashmere caramel accompaniment creamy, subtle and generous.

Even the cocktails are conceived of with the produce on hand as inspiration. I’ve never had an appletini quite like the one here, made with six of the estate’s dozens of apple varieties, tasting like freshness and autumn and, yes, that perfect yellow sunlight.

Service in general, and wine service more specifically, is that wonderful, oh-so-Australian combination of passion, warmth and personality – these are lovely people with whom to spend the afternoon, and they want you to eat and drink extremely well. The wine list is a mix of small and exciting Australian producers and European cult labels, and talking it through with the knowledgeable staff is a joy.

I found a huge amount of hope in the experience of dining at Barragunda: hope for the future of Victorian dining, which has been struggling in the years since this restaurant was first imagined. We haven’t seen very many new projects with this kind of ambition in that time, and it’s wonderful to experience that freshness and excitement again. Watts and her team are presenting an experience that revives that excitement – a beautiful homage to this part of the world and its exquisite light.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

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