The Banc Restaurant

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
Banc used to be a bank, a must-stop on the East Coast drive for coffee and its famous lemon tart. More recently, it has been turned into a restaurant with John Bailey in the kitchen and wife Lee gracing front of house. Small, tastefully re-designed and refurbished, it’s now one of the best restaurants on the coast with Bailey applying his chef experience at London’s Dorchester and his years in Tasmania to wonderful local produce, much of it seafood sourced straight from Great Oyster Bay on his doorstep.

The oysters, scallops, mussels, fish of the day and farmed baby abalone couldn’t be fresher. A haul of calamari lands in the kitchen, is cleaned and reappears minutes later crisply wok-fried with a spicy salt and Szechuan pepper coating. Bailey is also a lover of game with which he has a dab hand, evidenced in such dinner dishes as braised wild-shot hare pie and fallow venison steak with roasted beetroot.