Culinary experiences across NSW are as diverse as they are delicious. Bring your sense of adventure – and your appetite – as you explore everything from oysters to truffles.
Aug 2024 -
3
min readShuck an ocean-fresh oyster
The South Coast is home to a lip-smacking 300km-long oyster trail thanks to its pristine rivers and lakes. Captain Sponge’s Magical Oyster Tours will take you out onto Pambula Lake with the captain himself, a charismatic oyster farmer who’s passionate about shellfish and sustainability. Cruise over the oyster leases, don your waders and stand in the clear water for a crash course in oyster shucking. If you like champagne with your seafood, Sydney Oyster Farm Tours sets up a stylish table in the middle of the oyster lease for a one-of-a-kind in-water dining experience.
Captain Sponges Magical Oyster Tours, Pambula River
Dig for black gold
The first time you taste a black Périgord truffle, you’ll be overwhelmed by their intense earthiness and rich umami flavour. These delicious delicacies grow in just a handful of places around Australia and four of those can be found in NSW – the Southern Highlands, Orange, Canberra and the Snowy Mountains, and Oberon in the Blue Mountains. During the winter months, you can join the expert truffle dogs (and their handlers) as they hunt for black gold beneath oak trees, then feast on your find.
Sip wine flavoured with native ingredients
Firescreek Winery is a mini-Eden on the Central Coast, where butterflies flit between 30 species of fruit trees, alongside 40 different roses and countless other flora. Their organic grapes and the wines they produce have won medals around the world and are lauded for incorporating native flavours. Explore the vast grounds with a local Darkinjung Elder, nibbling on native plants and herbs you never knew were edible, and learning how they – and other botanicals – are transformed into some of the most memorable drops you’ll taste.
Firescreek Winery, Holgate
Catch your own mud crab
Many regard the Tweed’s mud crabs as the most succulent in the state, but don’t take their word for it. Go straight to the source with Catch a Crab. There’s no adventure quite like spearing an enormous crustacean from the Terranora Lakes mangrove system, then building on your haul with freshly harvested oysters, prawns and fish. At the end of the day, they sizzle on a barbecue while you sit back and enjoy the spectacular scenery.
Catch A Crab, West Tweed Heads
Take a cooking class in the Food Bowl of Australia
The Riverina is known as the Food Bowl of Australia and produces an incredible variety of fruit, vegetables, grains, wine and more. Wagga Wagga local Tania Sibrey makes the most of this exceptional produce (and the lessons of her food-obsessed mum) in her immersive cooking school, Food I Am. Pick ingredients from the kitchen garden, cook up a feast focused on everything from Moroccan to Mexican, barbecue to bao buns, and finish with a group lunch to indulge in your creations.
Food I Am, Wagga Wagga - Credit: FIA/Food I Am
Stomp grapes in the Hunter
The practice of grape stomping to make wine dates back to the time of the ancient Romans. And while the process is mostly mechanised today, you can still get your feet into it in Australia’s oldest wine region. Harvest time in the Hunter Valley runs from early January to mid February, and you can visit wineries during this time for a hands-on day of picking, stomping and tasting. Try De Iulius, Peter Drayton Wines, Glandore Estate, Brokenwood Wines and Hunter Valley Resort.
Hunter Valley Resort, Pokolbin
Dine on a unique Indigenous degustation
Be immersed in native ingredients, ancient flavours and Indigenous stories at Warakirri, a unique dining experience from Indigiearth in Mudgee. This is gourmet Australian cuisine like you’ve never tasted, incorporating seafood, game meat, rainforest fruits and delicate botanicals. Created by Ngemba Weilwan woman Sharon Winsor, Warakirri blends food and culture, pairing the meal with stories, songs and traditional knowledge.
Warakirri Dining, Mudgee
Trace rum from paddock to bottle
Husk Farm Distillery is the only single estate, paddock-to-bottle rum distillery in Australia and sits on the banks of the Tweed River in the Northern Rivers region. On a tour with Kiff & Culture, you can track the process right from the sugar cane fields. Cut your own cane stalk, watch it be crushed into juice, then learn about the complexities of sugar milling, fermentation and barrel aging that transform this sweet nectar into smooth rum. Finish with a cocktail-making class, using the cane juice and different varieties of Husk rum.
Tasting at Husk Distillers, North Tumbulgum
Have dinner with the stars
The outback town of Broken Hill is famous for its spectacular stargazing, with crystal-clear skies and zero light pollution. Outback Astronomy hosts regular Dinners with the Stars, where you can dine outdoors followed by a fascinating guided tour of the stars with the resident astronomer. Recline in your comfortable chair (complete with sleeping bag in winter) and listen with wonder as the heavens come to life.
Outback Astronomy, Broken Hill
Discover the joys of foraged food
Diego Bonetto believes that food is all around us – if you just know where to look. The Italian expat, chef and passionate wild food advocate leads regular foraging tours and workshops in the Blue Mountains, teaching people to identify edible plants, wild fruit and mushrooms. From peppery flickweed to sweet mulberries, sour wood sorrel and spicy pink peppercorns, there’s a world of flavour waiting in the bush.
Foraging with Diego Bonetto, Lithgow - Credit: Marnee Fox/Wildfood Store
