Barilla Bay Restaurant

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
This is the latest chapter in the Forest family’s oyster story, stretching back to 1980 when they started as small oyster farm in the Pittwater. Today they supply oysters to all parts of Australia and overseas. But you won’t get them any fresher, juicier or brinier than here, harvested each morning and opened to order in the family’s magnificent double-storied restaurant.

Can you really get oysters in ten different ways on one menu? Here you can – as nature intended, or in combinations with Japanese, Vietnamese, French and bush tucker flavours, iced, baked, crumbed or dusted.

The menu showcases creative use of the best and freshest Tasmanian seafood, featuring it in the chowders, pasta, curries and fabulous Thai-style salads. And for the carnivores, there is an equally imaginative hand behind dishes such as autumnal venison medallions with red cabbage braised in pinot noir, and Scotch fillet with an excellent, old-style Yorkshire pud. Then you can round out the meal with a steamed chocolate and Lark Distillery malt whisky pudding whilst looking out over the Pittwater to the Coal River Valley, where your wine and whisky were made.

With the Hobart airport only a short distance away, the restaurant will even package a great range of Tassie goodies and oysters for out-of-towners to take home. Surely that’s the best souvenir you can buy.

Graeme Phillips