The unique restaurant at Bendooley Estate winery is set in the Book Barn, a treasure house of rare books displayed under cathedral ceilings. The menu by chef Karl Wulf is inspired by produce in the surrounding Southern Highlands.
Sep 2021 -
2
min readCan you describe the setting? It’s definitely a destination – I would travel here with my wife if I didn’t work here! There’s a huge fireplace and the whole restaurant manages to be both cosy and grand because areas are sectioned-off, so it always feels intimate and unpretentious. The Book Barn is brilliant – diners browse through the shelves and sometimes buy a book. There’s a whole area of cookbooks too. It’s a true country experience.
Bendooley Estate, Berrima
What’s the winter menu like? We do casual, approachable, wholesome country food, very good quality with a produce focus. One of the big dishes this winter is the ‘nduja pasta. ‘Nduja is a spicy spreadable salami and we top it with a ball of fresh burrata cheese and black garlic vinaigrette. We ferment our own garlic and we do our own pickling too – I like doing cultured foods, which are good for the gut as well as tasty.
Bendooley Estate, Berrima
Is there a particular cuisine style? We have lots of nationalities in the kitchen and we love to bring all their skills into it. There’s a slow-braised lamb shoulder with peperonata and Argentinian chimichurri. We do grilled kingfish over Indian lentils with curry leaves and tempered mustard seeds. We have a French cook who does some charcuterie and our pastry chef trained in America, so he’s brought in a pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream and caramelised pecan nuts.
Grilled kingfish over Indian lentils, Bendooley Estate
That sounds great! It is! It’s not overly sweet and you can really taste the cinnamon and nutmeg. Another new winter dessert is a rice pudding with vanilla and thyme: it’s very comforting.
What’s another way you work with the seasons? We make sure our cures and dressings have that seasonal aspect, too. So, we usually have cured salmon but in winter we’ll use mandarin in the cure and dress it with shaved fennel and a winter dressing that’s got pickled root vegetables like beetroot and carrot for that acidic element. We layer that up further by sprinkling the dish with beetroot powder.
Bendooley Estate, Berrima
Does the restaurant have any signature dishes? People love our pizzas and we have a wood oven right in the middle of the kitchen that we cook them in. We’ve been known for our crab linguine, but we recently changed it to prawns: it’s very classic with chilli, garlic, olive oil and gremolata. There’s also a Tunisian samosa that is a signature: it’s with citrus frangipane and caramel.
Bendooley Estate, Berrima
