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Rick Stein at Bannisters and Bannisters Point Lodge in the media

crave-11

South Coast Foodies Rise to the Challenge

A rowdy South Coast team got up to snatch a surprise victory in the 100 Mile Challenge lunch on Sunday, beating more fancied rivals from the Southern Highlands, the Mid-North Coast the the Mudgee district.
As part of the Crave Sydney International Food Festival, teams from five NSW regions battled it out for the pleasure of six judges and 500 diners using food sourced only from withint 160km of their major town.
The South Coast team was judged to have produced the best main and best dessert and was also highly praised for its matching of the wines with each course - organised by sommelier Toby Evans from Rick Stein at Bannisters in Mollymook.
The lobster main course was prepared by Bannisters chef Alex Dawkins and the panna cotta dessert by the Berry Sourdough's John Evans.
But when you're relying on small local supply chains, anything can happen. Evans received a call from the Sussex Inlet strawberry grower last Tuesday. Rain was endangering the crop.
"There was no backup plan. I didn't allow myself to think about it. This was a major component of the dessert. I just had to think it was going to be all right."
Evans said the team from the Southern Highlands, featuring chefs from some big-name, hatted restaurants, was the big threat.
"We have the produce - the fish, oysters, fruit and vegetables - but we have not got as many restaurants. That's going to happen in time. We've also got the wineries. The reputation will come in time."
Each team was assigned an ABC personality for the lunch and the South Coast got Sydney morning presenter and famed nerd, Adam Spencer, who sledged the other teams mercilessly - particularly about the lobster.
"Adam Spencer was out of control," said Evans. "He rallied the whole South Coast table. And he kep rubbing it in to the other tables that the South Coast had lobster and they didn't. He must have mentioned it 20 times, making all the other tables jealous."
"Adam Spencer was insane and I mean that in the nicest possible way," said Berry Mountain Farm's Kevin Gorman, who supplied some of the winning team's vegetables.
"The South Coast had the rowdiest table. He really stirred us up. Every time we needed a cheer we had the loudest one there.
"It was nice to get acknowledgement," Gorman said.
Spencer told his Sydney radio audience he had become an honorary member of the "mighty South Coast".
"All I had to do was sit there and eat ... and I won. It was the best day of my life."
Team leader Kath Law from Kiama's Little Blowhole Cafe praised her team of volunteers which had no government backing. "I think we could take on Australia now," she said.
Judge and festival organiser Joanna Saville said the margin between the teams was "incredibly tight" but the South Coast had got over the line on the "strength of its menu and the way they executed it".
"The wine match was fantastic, the main course divine and the dessert was great with the most amazing honey."
She said the region had long been underestimated as a food destination.
"When I became diretor of the festival in 2009, the first thing I wanted to do was get the regions involved and the first region I thought of as deserving more recognition than it was getting was the South Coast.
"There's so much on the Southe coast that perhaps doesn't get talked about as much as other regions. And here we are almost three years later and the result bears out what I was saying."
And the highlight dish for her?
"Everybody was talking about the lobster. It was quite extraordinary. It had a lovely mayonnaise, little potatoes from Berry Mountain Farm and jamon from Warrawong - a really cool combination of ingredients.
Costa Georgiadis from SBS's Costa's Garden Odyssey told the audience that Evans' dessert was the highlight for him.
He told Evans later he would "walk to the Sourdough" to bet some more of it.

By Mark Whittaker, Milton Ulladulla Times, November 2011

Soothing Sounds

During the night, the sound of the surf is a soothing nightcap and a reminder of lazy days full of sun and surf. This is the south coast - not hard to take - as are the uncluttered beaches and easy-going nature of the locals, who actually welcome tourists rather than treating them like unwelcome heighbours.

Bannisters has put Mollymook 'on the map' attracting avid foodies to savour the elegant and on-so-fresh seafood of Rick Stein at Bannisters Restaurant.
There's a fishing fleet that goes out from Ulladulla harbour each day, so the catch is always fresh-off-the-boat.
In the restaurant, the menu is complemented by knock-out views and excellent service, so it's little wonder that Bannisters has raised its profile among those in-the-know.
All of the accommodation rooms have great sea views that only help add to that get-away-from-it-all feeling, and the surf is a stroll away.
These are soft sand beaches (as opposed to the coarser Sydney varieties). Their long stretches of white areirresistible on a spring day, where the closest person is likely 50 metres away.
There's just enough going on (or not going on) not to become bored - golf, sailing, boogie boarding, lots of kites, great beach walks and boutique shopping in the charming nearby town of Milton. Bannisters runs long table lunches every months with interesting guest speakers.

Canberra Times Destination, Sept 18th 2011

Australian Good Food Guide

For maximum fabulousness, though, it’s all about Bannisters. Looking out over the ocean on Bannisters Point, the knobbly bit of land which separates the beautiful north Mollymook and Narrawallee beaches, it’s undoubtedly the slickest hotel between Sydney and the border. Slick, that is, but not too cool for school. It was once a motor lodge, and rather than try to duck that cinderblock fact, the owners, in refitting it to that point of maximum fabulousness – large freestanding baths and those nesty wicker hanging chairs in some of the suites – have opted to let the place retain some personality. This is a good thing, whether it’s expressed in the natural friendliness of the staff or the excellent bar by the pool. It’s a pretty splendid place by any measure, and that’s even before you start to Rick and roll.

The restaurant part of Bannisters had latterly been one of the smarter operations on this part of the coast. When Rick Stein rolled into town, the ranks swelled both front- and back-of-house and the kitchen got a thorough refit. Stein, if you’re not familiar with him, is the British chef whose gentle but intelligent investigations of seafood around the world have become required viewing for ABC viewers over the past decade or so. His partner Sarah Burns is Australian, and he has been a frequent visitor to the wetter parts of the wide brown land for five years now. Technically speaking, his move has been a long time coming; it was an epiphanic moment eating Pambula oysters in Merimbula back in the 1960s, Stein says, that first fired his passion for this part of the world. In this, his first restaurant outside the UK, he follows an approach much like that of his famed establishment in Cornwall’s Padstow, the very similar menu roaming the world, cherry-picking seafood classics garnered from his adventures, and pairing the flavours with a local catch.

Stein names blue-eye trevalla, hapuka, John Dory and sand whiting as his favourites. “The first two produce large firm white fillets of excellent tasting fish. There is nothing quite like them in the UK,” he says. “Though we have John Dory in the UK, the South Coast fish are bigger and tastier. Sand whiting is one of my favourite fish anywhere.” He also values Clyde River and Merimbula oysters and Lake Illawarra prawns.

“I’m hoping the restaurant will develop into being the seafood restaurant in the area,” says Stein. “I would love it to become so popular that it influenced others to open similar restaurants on the coast to develop what I consider to be a slightly unsung hero, South Coast seafood.”

There are good things to be said for the stir-fried mussels in a pool of gingery broth flavoured with black beans, spring onions and coriander, even if, it must be said, some of the other Asian dishes are a bit on the tame side. It’s something of a surprise to see a rock-star fish like hapuka in the battered fish with fat chips, tartare sauce and good old-fashioned mushy peas, but the quality of the fish itself is right up there. The simplicity of the treatment of the oysters, prawns, periwinkles, crab, mussels and squid in the signature shellfish entrée, where they’re simply cooked and sauced with parsley, oil, lots of garlic and a little chilli is admirable. The single most impressive dish for our dollar, though, is the oysters Charentaise – local oysters opened to order and teamed with a pile of house-made Charentaise sausage hot from the pan. Down the oyster, bite the sausage, glug the wine and toast your good fortune.

Stein himself is more the patron than the chef in hands-on terms, and continues to spend much of his year in the UK and on the road. You might be lucky and catch him for a cameo, but enjoying his voice through the menu is probably going to be more like it. The chap actually shaking the pans here is Julian Lloyd, a British chef who first worked for Stein more than 10 years ago. Lloyd has cooked in Sydney and Cairns and has something of a feel for what people here want to eat. “The John Dory is flying out the door, the curry, and I go through hundreds and hundreds of oysters here,” he says

Milton Ulladulla Times - 23 June 2010

Masterchef contestant - Jake keen to master seafood.

Rick Stein at Bannisters and Bannisters Point Lodge in the media

South Coast Foodies Rise to the Challenge

Soothing Sounds

Milton Ulladulla Times - 23 June 2010

Milton Ulladulla Times - May 2010

Sydney Morning Herald - The Sydney Magazine - March 2010

Qantas (Inflight Magazine) - Restaurant Reviews - January 2010

Sunday Telegraph - 8 November 2009

Delicious magazine - October 2009

Sydney Morning Herald - Good Living - Terry Durack - 20 October 2009

Australian Woman's Weekly - October 2009

Canberra Times - Food & Wine - October 2009

Milton Ulladulla Times - Escape - 9th October 2009

Daily Telegraph - 3rd October 2010

Sunday Telegraph - 3rd August 2009

Sunday Telegraph - Escape - 2nd August 2009

UK Telegraph - 28th July 2009

Sunday Telegraph - Escape - 26th July 2009

Canberra Times - Break Away - 26th July 2009

Sydney Morning Herald - Good Living - 14th July 2009

Spa Life - Autumn 2009

South Coast Style - Good Vibrations - Autumn 2009

Sydney Morning Herald - Traveller - May 2009

SeaSpray - Bannisters Point Lodge, Subtle Luxury - May 2009

Woman's Day - December 2007