There are two things about dining at Rick Stein's celebrated restaurant overlooking the ocean at Mollymook that don't come as a surprise.
Firstly, the menu is almost entirely seafood. Tonight there is only one dish on the menu (not including dessert or side dishes) which doesn't include fish or seafood: braised lamb shank with potato fondant, eschallots and peas.
We're all good friends, and we all share the same love of slow food.
Libby Cupitt
The other non-surprise? Rick Stein himself – now the world's most famous fish chef because of his many books and TV series – isn't in the kitchen.
He's not even in the country. He rarely is, though he has a home here in Mollymook, the gorgeously unpretentious seaside town that is barely four kilometres out of Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast.
The affable Stein and his Australian wife, Sarah, opened Rick Stein at Bannisters in 2009. But he's usually found in Padstow – the historic Cornish fishing village where his empire began (now lampooned as Padstein because of the four restaurants he has in town). Or he is combing the world, film crew in tow, for increasingly more exotic ways to serve fish.
Instead, our chef tonight is Welshman Toby Bradley-Watson who has worked for Stein for four years between stints as a private chef on super yachts.
We're here, in winter, for a 7pm dinner. Wrong move, Bradley-Watson points out. It's already dark.
If you're going to have one meal at this cliffside hotel/restaurant, make it lunch – or at least a summertime dinner when you have enough daylight to enjoy an aperitif on the terrace above the ocean that has provided most of the food you're about to eat.
Stein may be the most famous chef in the Ulladulla-Mollymook-Milton area, but he's not the only one.
In fact, the reason we're here is to mark the launch of a new culinary partnership which will hold its inaugural event – Mollycoddle on the Beach – at Mollymook beach on Friday, October 30.
Rick Stein at Bannisters is one of four restaurants within a six-kilometre radius of Mollymook beach which have combined to form the South Coast Food Alliance. Its aim? To promote the area's commitment to slow cooking, fresh local produce and discerning palates.
The other three founding restaurants are Tallwood in Mollymook, St. Isidore on the edge of Milton, and Cupitt's Winery, on the back road between Ulladulla and Milton.
My mission? To dine at each one between Friday evening and Sunday lunchtime, preferably washed down with a matching wine for each dish.
Impossible? Well, it's tough. But since Tom Cruise is busy, I'm your man.
"We're all good friends, and we all share the same love of slow food," says Libby Cupitt, the winery's restaurant manager and events co-ordinator as our final meal draws to a conclusion on Sunday afternoon. "And we have the same philosophy about fresh, local produce."
There's also a bond between the kitchens. Matt Upson, head chef and co-owner at Tallwood, worked for a time at Rick Stein at Bannisters. So did Alex Delly, head chef and co-owner at St. Isidore.
In this small culinary world; where to start? Perhaps backwards, since Cupitt's was the first of the four to open?
Rosie and Griff Cupitt opened Cupitt's Winery in 2007, four years after they bought Washburton Farm, intending to run a small cattle operation.
Today Cupitt's Winery is much more than either cattle farm or winery. Since December 2014, it has also housed a craft brewery, serving five beers on tap (Pilsner, IPA, Brown Ale, Stout and an American-NZ "real ale"). And Rosie's latest venture is to open a commercial cheese factory at the winery. To conclude our lunch, she produces a scrumptious cheese platter featuring a range of her hand-crafted cheeses (including a runny brie and a tangy cheddar wrapped in traditional cloth) that will be served at the restaurant from Christmas 2015.
Lunch today is something special. After a week of severe storms, spring has laid out its mantle.
The views from the restaurant are spectacular – over the immediate valley westwards towards Pigeon House Mountain, so named by Captain Cook in 1770 because it reminded him of a dovecote.
The menu, by head chef Russell Chinn (formerly of Michel Roux's three Michelin-starred Waterside Inn, plus London's The Greenhouse), is "elegantly rustic", according to the website. But it also strives to match the highest French-English standards.
For a very reasonable $53, you get two courses, or $68 for three. Matching Cuppitt wines are $8.50 each.
I begin with a bowl of the Butternut squash veloute, with seared prawns and a light curry sauce, accompanied with a 2014 Cupitt Viognier.
But for the main, I choose the day's special: Corned beef Girello served with warm salad, kipfler potatoes, watercress and red onion, washed down with a 2014 glass of Rosie's Rose.
I haven't enjoyed a lunch this good since ... well, since yesterday.
St. Isidore (motto: Eat. Drink. Laugh. Live.) is tucked away on the back road to Pigeon House Mountain.
St Isidore? We're told he's the patron saint of farmers, peasants and rural workers. Born in Madrid in 1070, he married a woman who was also declared a saint (what are the chances of that?).
It's only when you pull into the car park that you realise how beautiful the location is. I'm reminded of The Hobbit's Shire, and fully expect Frodo or Bilbo to be fellow diners, given the surroundings include a duck pond, ponies and loudly crowing cockerels.
The waiting staff are also cock-a-hoop because St. Isidore has just been named one of the best regional restaurants in NSW by Gourmet Traveller.
Our lunch today begins with a couple of delicious local oysters served with a lemon and fennel granita, followed by a rather disappointing Kingfish escabeche and some melt-in-your-mouth grilled octopus.
Rather than ordering from the menu, we're served share plates. The chicken breasts are spiced with ras el hanout and served with baby carrots, onions and an almond honey dressing. As for the lamb shoulder, that comes with beetroot, orange, feta, pomegranate, red chard and baba ganoush. I much prefer the stronger flavours of the lamb.
For dessert, we're given tastes of a trio of sweets off the menu: coconut and pandan pudding, organic almond creme brulee with quince, and warm chocolate tart with salted caramel roasted peanut ice cream.
Obviously the chocolate tart is a winner – because my fellow diners have eaten it all by the time the plate reaches my end of the table.
Fortunately there's time for a long oceanfront stroll to walk off lunch before our next meal.
Yes, we're heading back to Tallwood for dinner.
Tallwood, according to some locals I know, is the best restaurant in the area. But its location is easily the least impressive of the four, tucked away in Mollymook's side main street (handy if you need to buy a weekend newspaper or a Lotto ticket).
Breakfast had been good. But why on earth did I opt for the Big Breaky option (potato rosti, bacon, tomato, house beans, mushrooms, chorizo, poached eggs and sour dough bread at $24) when I could have had the much more slimming house-cured salmon (plus avocado, fennel, and lemon myrtle for a mere $18)?
Now we have returned to Tallwood for Saturday dinner.
So far, Matt Upson, Tallwood's head chef, has kept a low profile, even though he has a very impressive culinary profile, having trained in South Australia under Cheong Liew, Simon Bryant and Maggie Beer among others.
In 2010, he and his partner moved to the south coast, opening Tallwood in 2003 with front-of-house business partner Clayton Till.
Till explains that both he and Upson have travelled extensively through Asia and have embraced the share plate philosophy. Till designed the restaurant, which has a casual, beach shack feel, with the kitchen deliberately open to provide theatre.
The menu changes constantly in tune to the seasons and the availability of local produce. But some favourites are consistent: Portuguese fishcakes, local seafood paella and twice-cooked pork belly.
But back to the beginning. Dinner at Rick Stein at Bannisters. One of the nicest touches here is the inviting ante-room where you can relax with a pre-dinner drink in front of the log fire.
When we're shown to our table, I order one each of the three rock oysters on the menu (Narooma, Ralston Brothers Waterfall and Tuross: there's also a Ralston Brothers Pacific Oyster).
I'm also tempted to order the Oysters Charentaise as an entree ("A seemingly odd combination – freshly opened oysters with some hot, spicy sausages. The idea is that you eat an oyster, take a bite of the sausage, then a good gulp of cold white wine").
But a special entree is being offered this evening: Pipis with chilli, lemon and oregano sauce. Bradley-Watson explains that it is variation of a dish from Stein's latest cookbook, From Venice to Istanbul. One of the restaurant suppliers had mentioned he'd got some particularly good pipis, and so the chef had adapted a Greek dish from the new book.
For a main, it's hard to go past one of Stein's most famous dishes: Madras fish curry of snapper, tomato and tamarind. ("Don't believe it when people say spice ruins the taste of good fish," Stein writes on the menu. "It accentuates it.").
All of this is washed down with an Australian verdelho recommended by our waiter.
You'd think we'd have had enough of food by now. But a couple of the chefs have also recommended that we pop in to sample a new kid on the block.
Milk Haus, also just outside Milton, opened at Easter 2015 in a former cheese factory. Danielle McKeon and Skye Longley share the local passion for fresh local produce and have their own garden and chooks.
Surely I've got room for a Beetroot and sundried tomato patty with creamy cauliflower and cashew mash?
It would be a shame to feel peckish on the long drive back to Sydney.
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION
shoalhavenholidays.com.au
GETTING THERE
Ulladulla is 220 kilometres from Sydney by car, 190 kilometres from Canberra and 840 kilometres from Melbourne.
STAYING THERE
Both Bannisters and Cupitt's Winery have accommodation.
EATING THERE
Rick Stein at Bannisters: 191 Mitchell Parade, Mollymook, NSW. Phone: 02 4455 3044; see bannisters.com.au
Cupitt's Winery: 58 Washburton Road, Milton, Ulladulla, NSW. Phone 02 4455 7888; see cupitt.com.au
St Isidore Restaurant: 89 Croobyar, Milton, NSW. Phone 02 4455 7251; see stisidore.com.au
Tallwood: Tallwood Avenue, Mollymook, NSW. Phone 02 4555 5192; see tallwoodeat.com.au
Milk Haus, 170 Woodstock Road, NSW, Phone 02 4455 7293; see milkhaus.com.au
