Brae restaurant awards puts Birregurra on the foodies B&B map
Dan Hunter’s new three hats restaurant, Brae, at Birregurra, some 90 minutes south-west of Melbourne, has been named The Age Good Food Guide restaurant of the year.
It is only the third time the award has gone to a restaurant outside of Melbourne.
Brae was also named best new and best regional restaurant in the Gourmet Traveller awards last week.
Chef Dan Hunter and his wife, Julianne established the $180 set price multi-course menu less than a year ago.
Drawing many of its ingredients from the surrounding gardens and local farms, The Age Good Food Guide co-editor Janne Apelgren said Brae was “a benchmark in contemporary fine dining”.
As for "the Brae Effect" what is very obvious is the surge in new B&B's as without doubt the restaurant has created huge demand for short-stay accommodation.
That means the 15 or so staff at the restaurant have found local accommodation challenging - some renting in nearby towns like Winchelsea and Colac.
There have been around 40 property sales since early 2013 at Brae, with prices ranging from $90,000 on Main Street to $1.8 million for an 80 hectare farm on Cape Otway Road. Sales are a bit too erratic to make out an obvious price growth trend.
The restaurant is on a seven hectare holding that sold in May 2013 for $1.05 million to the McCorkell Brown Group, directed by Howard McCorkell and Damien Newton-Brown, who have been building and developing iconic properties together for 15 years.
The property came with the original 1868 cottage, with Corkell and Newton-Brown commissioning James Legge, principal of Six Degrees Architects, to work on the design of the new operation.
Accommodation is currently on the drawing board with Damien Newton-Brown telling Property Observer that he is close to lodging the planning permit application for the accommodation, and if all things go well construction might get underway in early 2015.
Brae was formerly Sunnybrae, the pioneering paddock-to-plate restaurant owned and run by chef George Biron who farmed organically with his partner, Di Garrett, who sold the property.
Tulip in nearby Geelong was named the new regional restaurant of the year.
2015 marks the 35 edition of The Age Good Food Guide which is on sale for $24.99.
Photos: Chris Page. Source: Supplied.