Lunch in the Yarra Valley with old friends

The Yarra Valley is a beautiful place - rolling fields of vines and also, nowadays, fields filled with grazing cows - today with their calves - and we are very, very lucky to live on the edge of it. Today was not a beautiful day but nevertheless the sun burst through every now and then and the mist on the very picturesque hills that surround the valley was very appealing.

Our friends come from the bayside suburbs and the leafy inner suburbs and so neither of them are close to us or close to the Yarra Valley. Hence they stayed overnight after our French dinner last night, and today we added to the holiday atmosphere by driving out for lunch.

And as an aside let me say that our GPS system did not star today. 'She' (we call it 'she') was determined to take us down no through roads and unmade roads that 'she' might have thought were short cuts but were not - indeed the no through road just led to the river with no way to get across. It was an added amusement for our day out - though I suspect that if it had been just the two of us it would not have been so amusing. That's what friends do - they lighten everything and point out the absurdity of it all.

Anyway, it turns out that our chosen (and booked) restaurant was an adjunct to the Badger's Brook winery, (pictured above) just down the road from the French Dominique Portet.. And when I came to write this post I found that it used to be called Bella Vedere. Now we never went there, but I was aware of it as being one of the best restaurants in the Yarra Valley (and believe me there are a lot of them - it's a gourmet destination). The chef was one Gary Cooper. So I tried to find out why it had closed and/or what happened to the chef. But I'm afraid I found no answers. Maybe if I had kept up my subscription to delicious I would have found out. I'm pretty sure that it was successful - well it was certainly a food critic's darling and he was a minor celebrity chef - so I can only assume he went on to bigger and better things - or else went into some totally new venture. I shall probably never know. And do I care? Well no not really.

Anyway it is now called Tramonto Kitchen and Bar and it was very, very nice. Mind you I guess I am not really qualified to judge as we were not looking for a big meal after last night's feast, and settled for a couple of shared platters between us. Beautifully presented and nice things, but also to be perfectly honest, not really showing off the current chef's skill, as most of the elements of the platter were bought from elsewhere. The exceptions being the in-house chicken liver paté and some of the pickles. But it hit the spot, the service was charming, the in-house pinot gris was very delicious and the setting was lovely. We also had a table near the open fire which was also very warming on this very cold day. So I guess I can't comment on the food really, but I would be very happy to go back and give it a go. What the other diners were eating looked pretty nice and they seemed to be enjoying it.

My lovely friends said my hors d'oeuvre variés were better, but then they are my friends and so they would say that.

Best thing on the platter? The Yarra Valley Dairy goat's cheese - and I don't generally like goat's cheese. We should go back there some time for a meal.

No dinner tonight though - maybe just a bit of bread and cheese.